[Pokémon] Wings Have We

Hiding, for a lot of creatures of Earth, was a rather difficult task. There was all that business of squeezing in tight spaces, or climbing to high vantage points to peer down on below (and maybe get in some target practice), and the terrible bother of actually keeping yourself there. Of course, some of the residents could bypass this issue; some had camouflage, or others were just too fast to be caught. And some had both, such as the little ball of fuzz now flicking between the trees, looking around constantly…

…she wasn't labeled as the Mirage Pokémon for nothing.

Yes. Amarachi was still hanging around this place, even though she was well aware that people were looking for her and that it was dangerous to stay here. Even though she was being constantly harped by the other Mewkizuu she knew so well. Even though making a concrete home for herself somewhere was just asking for trouble of the most uncomfortable kind. But Holon was her home, and no… person was going to take that from her with their cold and merciless grip.

They had already taken enough without.

The small pink creature slipped up a tree, looking around for any potential danger which might have arisen. Eventually, her ears picked up a faint buzzing noise, coming from the human settlement – 'City', was it called? – near her hiding spot. It was most definitely an irritating buzzing noise, it was coming from the city – specifically at the oversized tower where Those People tended to hang around, and it would… not… stop.

Amarachi was a member of the Mewkizuu, a fancy word for the multiple Earth-dwelling 'Mews' spawned from a rather uncomfortable incident involving the only original Mew (fondly referred to by the Mewkizuu as 'Mother' or respectfully as 'Origin of Species' or just 'Mew') and some electromagnetic torment on the part of humanity. Mew had accepted the almost-clones as another species in her great line of descendants, and proclaimed them the 'Mewkizuu' from an old Pokémian word of the Mew Dialect which meant 'in spirit'.

And, truth be told, Amarachi couldn't help but think that maybe there was something distinctly unpleasant about that tower over there.

-

"There they go," mumbled one voice.

"Moving a little fast, are we?" noted another.

The third just giggled.

The closet which Casey, Sheridan, and Caro had just passed was not empty as they had assumed (and was, indeed, actually there) in the rush of quietly scrambling across the floor as fast as possible. Of course, it was pitch-dark in there, so the ignorance was somewhat justified.

Despite the fact that three distinct voices could be heard, only two of them were human.

Kidd Summers readjusted herself uncomfortably; she was in a rather strange-looking position (considering her partners Billy and Aerith – yes, really, Aerith – had occupied most of the floor space in the already-cramped room) of a sort of suspended pirouette with one foot against the back wall and both hands trying to balance herself. This left nothing free to move from her face the strands of brown hair that had evidently come loose from her far-too-perilous haircut. Trying to remove the strand by blowing on it, Kidd's attempt failed and the innocent lock of brown hair fell in front of her face again.

Kidd glared daggers and laser beams at it.

"Yeah, I see you," mumbled the woman under her breath. "Off of my face, please? It's important." She tried to push the hair away by waving her head, but all that did was make the two other oversized buns on both sides of her head wave uselessly.

Pouting, Kidd turned back to Aerith as she spoke.

"Would you stop fidgeting? We need to get them! Find your costumes!"

Everyone straightened up immediately, and Kidd began shuffling around in the junk for the 'costume' that was required sporting for the big guys higher up in the Team. It was as if this strange Chinese shirt-thing and black leotard wasn't enough to satisfy their strange outfit fetish! But, then again, Kidd did wear a pretty funky outfit on recon missions, so not all the blame went to them. Fastening the midnight-blue cape around her shoulders with a brooch shaped like a round blue gem, Kidd waited in the semi-corner for Billy to compose himself.

Well, of course, he was already wearing his outfit.

Fitted over the man's bulky frame was one of the Grunts' robes, except his was unbuttoned and looked more like a longcoat than anything else. The hood wasn't up either (Arceus forbid anything restrict the enormous mess of green palm-tree tangles that was his hair). Under the blue 'coat' was a white shirt and dark pants. He was wearing old, beaten-down sneakers.

And Aerith was a Delcatty, so she never really needed to worry about that sort of thing. Because, you see, Pokémon aren't really required to wear outfits because they really don't look as good in them as people d—

Oh, yes, about the whole talking Delcatty thing.

Well, Aerith was rather unique as far as Delcatties went. After some… er… 'experimentation' with magnetic energy, it left the Pokémon (then a Skitty) to speak English… but not Pokémian. Any attempts at speaking her native tongue would inevitably fail. It wasn't pleasant and at all useful to lose one language and gain another, but it was an English-speaking Pokémon the scientists had on their hands… so why not fork it up to one of their best agents? Why, yes, that was a wonderful idea. And besides, Kidd was saddled with Billy already, so it couldn't get much worse.

Well, Kidd was hardly ecstatic to learn that she had gotten yet another tagalong dumped on her, but regardless of this feelings of kinship grew among the three and upon evolution the Skitty earned a name.

And so was born the trio of Billy, Kidd, and Aerith, super-stealthy-slippery-seekers and current ninja guards. They watched on (mostly) silently as the trio of intruders waltzed by completely unaware of their presence. After sharing a few glances and mumbled words, the BDV operatives opened the door while praying it wouldn't squeak, and slipped out after them before skipping back into another door. This remarkable stealthiness only worked for about a minute before they decided it was too dangerous and should take it the Old-Fashioned Way, but it was relatively nice while it lasted.

One of the intruders (the one with the red hair) wandered over to the side for a few seconds, examined the blue wall in front of him curiously, and then called the other two over. They came, curious as to what he was harping about, and the redhead reached into a rather dark hole that protruded from the wall. He groped around for a few seconds in the hole, and finally pulled out a small dark stone, ovular and about the size of a peppermint candy.

The Raichu-hoodie intruder whistled, impressed at his find.

The blondie intruder gave a little gasp and practically pranced over to him, examining the object with great delight and proclaiming that Casey now had in his possession a Dusk Stone. Which he could use to…

"Oh dear," said Kidd.

Redhead had a Murkrow, apparently, and Dusk Stones were a wonderful way to evolve one's Murkrow. He asked something about how evolution works ('What is this kid,' thought Aerith, 'Caldan?'), looking at the stone in Blondie's hands. She and Raichu Boy begin to explain just what it is, and after a few notes that there was a possibility the Pokémon's personality could change (Redhead looked pleased with this) he whipped out a Pokéball.

Within a few seconds a Murkrow was on the floor, taking a karate stance.

Redhead sighed exasperatedly and told him that he was going to evolve soon if he wanted to. The boy put emphasis on the 'if he wanted to' part ('Yes,' thought Aerith, 'either Caldan or just a rookie. No experienced Trainer would ASK their Pokémon to evolve, for Deoxys' sake!'), and after the Murkrow nodded its head and pumped a few wings in the air, Redhead took the stone and…

…didn't do anything.

He was just looking at the stone and the Murkrow, wondering what to do with it. After touching the small, dark thing to various places on the Murkrow's body (crest, chest, tail, beak, etc.) the Dark-type seemed to grow tired of its Trainer's stupidity and displayed how to properly use an Evolution Stone.

He popped it in his mouth and ate it.

Redhead's jaw fell open as the Murkrow let it sit in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. A few seconds passed, a swirl of light filled the room, and where the foot-tall Murkrow had been sitting was perched such a threatening and sleazy bird that it looked like the appropriate housepet of a Mafia boss.

Its chest seemed to puff out naturally, and the bulky appearance was only made more obvious by the obnoxiously large tuft of white feathers that set out against the red and midnight-blue draping the rest of its body. Small, beady eyes peered out from a crest which was now more of a fedora than a mutated witch hat, and its wings had blood-red feathers on the inside. The tail had morphed to the same color.

The Honchkrow gave a grating caw. Blondie and Raichu Boy admired it for a few seconds – Redhead didn't look so pleased at his Pokémon's new look. The newly-evolved Honchkrow flew around the room once, cawing like a maniac.

Aerith got the distinct impression it was some sort of demented victory lap.

The three BDV ops shared a worried look – more evolved Pokémon meant more powerful Pokémon, and more powerful Pokémon meant harder-to-dispel Trainers – but then all decided at the same time that it wasn't really too much of a problem. After all, their Heads – the two BDV Admins who lurked in this building – would wipe them out easily. (Or at least Mr. Hikaru would.)

And then, out of a side door, slipped Grunt CD0000. He looked surprised at the Honchkrow.

Billy, from his much more comfortable position in the new closet, elbowed Kidd softly. She put a finger to her mouth in response and kept looking on. CD0000 moved closer to the intruders, and Aerith smiled a little; maybe he was going to turn them in, or even better: whack them around the head a few times with that wad of metal he carried around like a child's blanket before turning them in! The Delcatty gave a toothy grin at the thought, but she was soon set straight.

No, he wasn't turning them in, or whacking them around the head. No. He was… talking to them. Politely. In sane conversation.

Aerith's eyes slid over to meet Kidd's (which looked worried) and Billy's (which were unreadably goofy as always). "This means trouble," mumbled the Normal-type to her 'coworkers'. She sounded excited.

"Follow 'em," said Billy. He was a man of few words, but a few of these words held infinite knowledge disguised in slang terms. This phrase was not one of them. However, it was decent advice and (as Kidd could tell Aerith was going to point out) just barging out and yelling at him was really no fun and they would all be caught in due time anyway (the trespassers for trespassing and the turnrobe for double-crossing) and so the three decided to watch and follow. They nearly missed CD0000 walking away again.

They followed him leaving through the same door he had came with a renewed eagerness to catch someone in the act. And when they looked back at the three trespassers they were gone.

-

Indeed, the trio had left Billy, Kidd, and Aerith's field of vision. Instead they were walking up a spiral staircase which wound around another one, and directly into a lot of trouble. For at that moment, a man was walking up the other staircase, seeing as Hikaru had gone to all the trouble to call him up. And since Hikaru had done that, well, Hikaru was sort of the superior officer between the two Admins, and Juan didn't enjoy disobeying superior officers.

They tended to get mad when you did that. And even though Hikaru is very difficult to irritate, when you do it's… not pretty.

Juan wasn't turning his head to the three, and considering his eyes were veiled by a very strange deep hoodie with goggle lenses cut into it where his eyes were, it wasn't hard to understand why. He wasn't looking at them (even though the man often came across as scatterbrained, her certainly wasn't stupid), since looking at them would mean that they might have a subconscious urge to look at him, which would certainly not turn out well.

And so it came as no surprise to him when he slipped off into a side passage that wasn't there and they didn't notice.

Well, alright, it was there. But it was hidden so well behind one of the multiple dangling strips of colorful cloth that hung two apiece on one of the ridiculous amount of landings and a few on the walls. And so Juan slipped behind a blue-and-orange cloth and nobody noticed the man in the Swampert suit.

'Yes,' thought the man as he found himself in pitch darkness and began navigating the room as if it were in broad daylight, 'I think that Hikaru won't be happy about this.'

"But should I tell him?" wondered the man out loud. "I don't think so. I can always deny I knew anything.

"…Mrrrrr!"

He scampered up another abandoned elevator shaft (it had taken a lot of insisting to the Boss that he would feel a lot better climbing up and down himself, and Juan liked to respect the rare scrap of kindness given by the Boss) which wound up and around the walls of the building. Indeed, this place was a lot stranger and larger on the inside than on the out, but that's what happens when two of the owners know nothing about architecture and the third was insane.

Juan gave off a little mrrring sound as he climbed, dangling from metal frame to metal frame, never really losing his balance despite the strange and very dangly outfit he was wearing.

It looked for all the world like an inappropriately-sized hoodie, with the drawn-up hood dangling well over the eyes (that's where the goggle lenses came in) and two blue fin-like structures spurting up from them and around the back of the hood. Two spiky strands of orange hair hung down from under the hood, framing his face which was now twisted into a wicked, deranged smile. The opening in his hood hung on him as well, giving a view of the black shirt underneath down to around the top of the chest. Down the middle of the aqua-blue hoodie was a wide, light-blue strip, and on the outside of either arm orange spots. They appeared again on the knees of his navy-blue pants.

Overall, a very dangly, strange-looking outfit for someone in such a lofty position to wield. But Juan liked it that way, and he wasn't about to change this either.

…It reminded him of things long-gone, after all.

He continued to scamper up the pseudo-ladder as Caro, Casey, and Sheridan continued to stomp up the staircase. (Billy, Aerith, and Kidd had given up on ever finding them and keeping their heads totally intact after the twin staircases were brought into the equation.)

Juan climbed up and into a short tunnel which eventually led to Hikaru's office with a soft 'mrr'. A few seconds after he slipped in, the trio of intruders reached the top landing. Before Casey could do anything, Sheridan wormed to the front of the procession and walked up to the door. She took hold of the handle and signaled for the boys to keep quiet.

And then she turned.

And the door slammed open. She stepped into the room, sending death glares in many different directions. "So what are you suckers doing?" she asked in a very different and more intimidating voice than the two other travelers were accustomed to.

But – just in this one instance – it actually sounded an awful lot better than her normal one.

"Juan," responded Hikaru, nodding to the man in question as he did so.

"Hi-ka-ruuuuuuuuuu," taunted Juan, elbowing him slightly. "Come on, just this once, mrrr. I haven't seen you battle in awhile. Wouldn't want you to get rusty, now would we, eh?"

Hikaru pouted and turned to the three intruders. "Well. Fine." He took a few steps closer and tried to contort his feminine face into something relatively scary. Whipping a Luxury Ball out of his pocket, the BDV Admin took a few breaths and tossed out his Pokémon. The Togekiss flapped his wings happily, and gave a singsong chime as a few feathers dropped to the ground. Everyone except for Hikaru (including Juan) looked on in disbelief for a few seconds, until Sheridan took a step back.

And then another.

And then another. And then she retreated into the doorway and pushed Casey and Rotom in as she did so.

"What—"

"Go on," the twenty-something assured her. "Just use Rotom. It'll be a breeze, and I don't think you've even used him that much yet."

Sighing in defeat at the hands of Sheridan (and with Caro not looking like he was going to object) Casey walked forward and, with a wave of his hand, sent Rotom out onto the battlefield. "Okay, use—"

"Ah-ah!" called Hikaru, shaking his head. "I'm not going to let a battle take place in here, foolish boy. Far too many delicate and personal objects, you'll understand, yes? I assure you, there is a perfectly good formal battlefield we can use instead. Come along." Hikaru walked right past Rotom, Casey, Sheridan, and Caro, Togekiss and Juan following right behind. The latter looked quite unimpressed with his superior's decision to prolong a decent fight even longer, but Togekiss was just as beaming and radiant as when he had just come out.

"Might as well," observed Casey.

Caro shook his head and mumbled something about 'this is not how raids are supposed to go', but followed anyway.



"It shall be a three-on-three battle," said Hikaru with an inappropriate amount of pleasure in his voice. "I'm afraid there's a pressing matter I need to attend to and don't have time for much more. Is that alright with you?" He didn't seem to notice the slightly-confused expression currently 'gracing' Casey's features and the bemused glares of the young Trainer's comrades (and Juan).

Casey blinked. "Er, I've only got two Pokémon."

"Three-on-two, then!" Hikaru smiled as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

"Is that even fair?" asked Casey in disbelief as he walked onto a bright red, railing-rimmed platform that looked like it should probably be where he stood (considering Hikaru had a blue one on his side of the field). "Oh, yes. Since you only have two Pokémon, I'm sure they both must be trained up to wondrous levels, yes?"

"Um." Casey shifted his weight uneasily. 'How am I supposed to survive THIS?' he thought while batting down the increasingly powerful wave of panic that threatened to eat him up entirely.

Much to his surprise, aforementioned platform began to rise into the air, slowly at first. Casey realized with a jolt just what the railings were for as he clung onto them in surprise (after jumping about three inches off the ground).

Hikaru did the same thing, without all of the startled reactions, and waved his hand to signal that Togekiss go onto the battlefield. The white feathered Pokémon did so happily. Rotom, sensing Casey's gaze on him, had Beast nod vigorously and zipped down to the appropriate position. He chirped happily, eager to do something cool, and practically bounced around on the small area where he was to wait.

"Not one for taking things by the book?" asked Caro to no one in particular, sliding into one of the five spectators' seats that mysteriously found their way into Hikaru's stadium. "Of battles with evil teams, I mean?"

"Not 'evil'!" corrected Juan and Sheridan at the same time, Sheridan mockingly and Juan insulted somewhere behind the stupid outfit. "…Just unorthodox in a potentially nasty way," added Sheridan with a grin. Juan nodded with a soft 'mrrr' and slid into the seat on the end of the row of stadium seats, while Sheridan took the one in the middle.

"No, I mean…" Caro drifted off for a few seconds, trying to gather his thoughts. "It's just not what you'd expect a battle with a guy like… um…"

"Hikaru-mrrr," added Juan.

"Yes, thank you, Hikaru. It's not what you'd expect someone like Hikaru, who's in Team BDV – er, well, duh. But. People in Teams like this aren't often big fans of interrupting important fights to find a proper place to stage them. I mean, a lot of them happen in random caves, for crying out loud! You know what I mean?"

Sheridan said, "No." Juan didn't respond, but simply crossed his legs and looked intently at the battlefield.

Everyone previously mentioned had thought that, except for the others that they could see, they were alone in the room. Of course, they were wrong; what sort of stalkers (and one concerned not-stalker) would allow their targets to get away so easily? Not Casey, Sheridan, and Caro's stalkers, that's for sure.

In the cockpit a little under the left side of the battlefield, two people and a Delcatty stood watching intently. Both humans wore a cape – the Delcatty wore an expression that reflected quite clearly that it seeked to watch some Pokémon get their tails handed to them.

On the right side's cockpit there was a man wielding a rather intimidating metal pipe. He didn't look happy.

"Not 'evil'!"(...)"…Just unorthodox in a potentially nasty way," added Sheridan

^From the almighty Wikipédia. RAWR.

Me thinks Sheridan is wrong right.

It's a good addition to the fic overall, because it's a funny bit that keeps happening in those situations you expect it but don't see it coming (that made a lot of sense... <_<).

So, the first battle against the "evil" team, huh? Is it gonna be epic unlike like the game battles? :>

About that, another funny bit is how Hikaru took them to a stadium instead of, well, anywhere. "Far too many delicate and personal objects"; that sounds like some of the game's admins. xD

Also, this reference:

average invention of Dr. Kaminko

Click to expand...

Is epic win.

Also, that Gym Leader didn't last long. Well, she's the first one of the region, but still xD

I missed some 5 chapters (that I somehow read in two hours o_O) and it looked pretty good as far as I could see. Keep going! :D

About the Gym Leader thing... she really only had one Pokémon at the time. The second one was just a bluff. xD So when there's two low-levelled Pokémon duking it out, it's not going to be a championship battle or anything. Hopefully, though, the Hikaru fight will be a little lengthier and more exciting. I'm no good at Pokémon battles, as you saw with the Marianne fight, but... we're working on it, okay? xD Hikaru is very protective of his stuff and doesn't like things getting hurt (sounds familiar somehow...), and so he built a stadium - ignoring Juan's complaints - for whatever battle-inducing problem may arise. Because really, not battling in a stadium is sooo uncivilized.

Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates it. And to those who don't, Merry Superholiday. (And you better be thankful for this - I wrote the whole thing in less than twenty-four hours!)


WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ONE (1) WORD WHICH MAY BE INAPPRORIATE FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT'S NEAR THE VERY END OF THE CHAPTER, THOUGH, SO MAKE OF THAT WHAT YOU WILL.



Rotom looked pumped up to battle, while Togekiss just looked pleased with the whole entire wonderful world.

"Caaaaa~seeeeeey~" cooed a voice from somewhere around the boy in question's head. He looked around confusedly before recognizing the voice and looking downward into the Megaphone Rock. "So how are you getting on?" I asked in the most pleasant voice possible. "Oh, no, don't tell me. I see you're having a fight with Togekiss… Boy. Yes. Togekiss Boy. He certainly is a stickler for rules, eh?" I chuckled. "Well, I said that I wouldn't help you any more, but Rotom's got a critical advantage over Hikaru's flock. It's up to you to find out what it is. Have fun, now!" And the words fizzled out.

'Well,' thought Casey, 'at least there's some hope of survival in this.'

It was faint, granted. It was faint and flickering and extremely jumpy and probably prone to scare itself into futility at any minute, but that was enough for our dear friend Mr. Blair. And so he frowned slightly and thought about the situation. There was something Rotom had over the enemy…

Waitaminute.

There was something that Casey remembered… from school… sort of… it involved Electric-type Pokémon (Casey knew Rotom was one of these) and one other type…

…so what was it?

Yet again, Casey cursed the Casey-logic that led him to ignore all Pokémon Studies classes because he highly doubted he would be needing them. Casey-logic did seem to be acting up these days. As Casey racked his brain for that one piece of information, he tried watching Togekiss.

Togekiss beat its wings happily and gave a (very cute) little chirping noise as it waited for Rotom to move (Casey suspected that it was on his owner's orders that he hesitated and allowed the opponent to move). As a matter of fact, the thing was… flying. Like, beating wings and remaining up in the air. It seemed tall, almost. Tall like… a lightning rod. And what did lightning rods do? Well, they caught electricity for one thing, of course, like trees and other high pla—

"Oh," said Casey. "Oh."

Rotom had Beast turn around and beam at him. Much to both of their surprise, Casey smiled back. "Use Thundershock, Rotom," he said with a rarely-present firmness in his voice. Rotom, sensing this, turned back around with a chirp and promptly released a sparkling, cracking wad of electric energy directly at Togekiss. The Pokémon set up a Protect on his master's orders ("Protect yourself, please.") and watched in admiration as the electric ball made mini-fireworks on the energy barrier.

Casey ground his foot into the floor a few times and remarked, "And again!"

Rotom obeyed obediently and released another Thundershock at the now-sputtering Protect. It gave a little moan and fizzled out literally a second before the Thundershock made contact with Togekiss – the thing didn't even have time to change his expression to something appropriately scared.

Togekiss flew back from the blast and crashed into the wall, and gave a distinctly un-fabulous croaking noise. It then flew back onto the battlefield, ruffled considerably but still able to hold its ground.

"See?" asked Hikaru. "If we had done this in my office… well, our office…" He shot a glance at Juan, who seemed to be looking at him expectantly under the goggle lenses, "then bang! There would go the wall cabinet containing all sorts of important files. Now do you see the importance of—EXTREMESPEED!"

Everyone jumped as Hikaru barked an order in the middle of his small speech, and jumped again as a second later Rotom was sent flying into the opposite wall. Togekiss had zoomed right in front of the surprised Pokémon, and left the tiny creature (unable to contend with the wind) spiraling out of control. Incapable of controlling its body, Rotom twisted around and fell to the floor.

Rotom screeched, slowly staggering out of its position in the dirt and wobbling around in the air. His shell was cracked and core flickering, but nonetheless the small Pokémon remained floating. Floating, however, does not equal floating well – our tiny friend was still shaking all over and staggering around in the air, as if it were dizzy.

"Oh," said Sheridan. "Oh Mew. Casey doesn't know about status conditions, does he?"

"I don't think so," replied Caro, looking worried.

Juan overheard this and laughed. Down in one of the pits below the battlefield, the Groupie Galaxy's stalkers were snickering too, if only because Rotom looked so stupid whirling around like that. CD0000 fought to contain a loud groan.

"Eh? But Rotom is a ghost… doesn't Normal-type just…"

"Oh, the attack wouldn't have hit him," said Hikaru nonchalantly. "But if you had been watching, you would have seen that the turbulence caused by my dear Togekiss flying around was powerful enough to send our little friend spinning." He waved an arm in the direction of the Rotom-shaped dent in the wall. "Logic never fails, boy…"

Casey frowned.

"Oh! That reminds me, boy. What's your name?"

"Casey," he replied through gritted teeth.

Hikaru didn't respond, but merely grinned and nodded as he waved his hand from Togekiss to somewhere else on the battlefield. The Jubilee Pokémon flew back to his side of the battlefield, shook the fog out of his head, and gave another cute little grin. (Casey resisted the urge to stick out his tongue in disgust.) Rotom was still whirling around, moaning. Both sides knew who the likely victor was right now, and Team Casey wasn't too happy about the chances.

"Lovely!" Hikaru beamed. "Now, please use Sky Attack."

"Thundershock," said Casey flatly. Rotom didn't respond.

Togekiss was waggling one wing frantically.

"Thundershock," Casey said again. Still no response.

Togekiss was beginning to gather whirling, angry air about its wing.

"Thundershock!" The volume rose higher. Zilch from Rotom.

The air had formed into a long, pointy-looking, and probably very painful rod.

"Thundershock!" Casey boomed, having finally lost his temper. All odds were against him. This Hikaru person probably had extremely powerful Pokémon, more so than his. He also had one more Pokémon than Casey did. He knew how to communicate well to his Pokémon, which Casey didn't. And not to mention Togekiss wasn't staggering around like it had too much to drink. And Togekiss was releasing the rod of air, it was flying towards Rotom and whirling angrily it was—

Well, actually, it fell apart about halfway to Rotom.

Apparently, Casey's yowling had caused Rotom to clear his head, and in that time he had generated a Thundershock. It flew directly through the Air Slash, severing it in multiple places, and was now on a crash course for Togekiss. The Pokémon, yet again, had no time to dodge the Electric attack before it hit him. The Jubilee Pokémon looked everything but jubilant as it yowled in a way that miraculously still managed to sound like church bells, and watched horrified as small electric sparks flickered across the feathery surface of its skin.

"Air Slash, again," said Hikaru.

Togekiss tried to move but apparently cramped up. His wings stopped beating and the Pokémon fell to the ground, writhing but otherwise quite immobile.

"Whuh-oh," giggled Juan. "Togekiss is pa~ra~lyyyyyzed!" He sang this as if he were quite enjoying Hikaru's Pokémon being subject to this torment. Sheridan tried to inch her chair away from his as quietly as possible.

"And again," said Casey, grinning and with hands on his hips. Rotom happily obliged. Togekiss received an extremely accurate Thundershock, gave another moan, and promptly fainted. Hikaru didn't look too pleased with this outcome, but Casey was strangely relieved that the man wasn't giving his usual calm happiness in the face of a fallen Pokémon.

"That was good, dear Togekiss," said Hikaru. He recalled his Pokémon, nodded to the Pokéball he contained it in, reduced it, and placed the object in his pocket. In the same stroke he whipped out another Pokéball, this one a Great Ball, and tossed it into the ring.

"Have you ever seen one of these before? Many Trainers I've talked to expressed disdain when I mentioned these… Golbat, come here, please."

Aforementioned Golbat was a blue creature, with ears twitching constantly and mouth gaping open. Blue wings with purple skin stretched between the spindly fingers batted at the air, and its legs looked very underdeveloped. Casey waited until after the Pokémon screeched a response for it to close its mouth – because really, Casey couldn't imagine how the Pokémon would look when it did. By the looks of things, its wings were attached to its jaw!

The Pokémon's mouth never closed.

Casey, who was a bit more accustomed to the stranger sides of Pokémon design, didn't fall back on his Casey-logic this time but merely nodded to accept the mysterious anatomical outcast. However, what he did think about was the fact that Golbat had wings… this would mean he was a Flying-type too, right? So Rotom should be effective against him as well.

Satisfied with his New-Casey-logic, Casey took a glance over at his friends.

Caro was frantically pointing to an object in his hand. It was what looked like a plastic spray-bottle, with a purple base and white nozzle. He remembered that a sales associate back at the Rhoter Pokémart had noted he really ought to get some of them, and had actually handed one to Casey before scampering off to assist someone else in purchasing the right kind of tent for traveling the old-fashioned way. Casey had pretty much forgotten about the object… until now.

Fishing the object out of his backpack, Casey observed it more closely. The front of the bottle said "POTION", and that was about it. Flipping the object over to the back, he quickly scanned the contents. As usual, half the things seemed to be ripped directly from an Ancient Rotan Dictionary, and since Casey was not fluent in most dead languages he looked to the other side. It proclaimed, in slightly smaller lettering, 'For use on wounded Pokémon. Do not bring into contact with humans.' Casey looked at the rather beaten-up Rotom, then at Caro, who was nodding enthusiastically.

"Well," said Casey, "I'd like to use a healing item on Rotom…"

"Oh, that's no problem," said Hikaru cheerfully. "Here. GQ1995, please heal this Rotom with the Potion that Mr. Casey will provide you with."

Out onto the battlefield strutted a young woman in some rather crazy clothing. It was a deep purple dress (marked with the BDV team logo on the chest, naturally) that went halfway down her thigh, made of very thick, warm fabric. It had very wide sleeves, and the girl was wearing black-and-blue striped leggings under it down to some gold-buckled, black leather boots. On her head was a helmet with a narrow spike down the middle and two more on either side, with the tree connected by an arching black visor. She looked remarkably like a witch.

The female BDV Grunt calmly waved for Casey to toss the Potion down to her. After he carefully dropped it and the Grunt caught it perfectly, she walked over to Rotom and sprayed it on him. Within a few minutes the bruises and scratches seemed to melt away, and the little Pokémon looked like he had just come out of a Pokémon Center.

"We may continue now, I presume?" asked Hikaru.

"Uh," said Casey after the Grunt had left the arena, "I guess so."

"Good," said Hikaru with a grin. "In that case, Golbat, please use Toxic."

Caro groaned loudly and lolled his head over the back of his chair. Sheridan frowned, whether from the move or Caro acting like a child it was uncertain. Golbat made a few spluttering noises, until a violent purple liquid started to pour from its gaping mouth. Casey felt his stomach turn in disgust. More gurgling, a bit of shaky flying, and Golbat sent a whole raincloud full of the stuff upon Rotom.

Rotom's Trainer threw up a little in his mouth.

"Toxic," explained Hikaru. "Its use is far rarer than typical Poison's, so allow me to describe it for you." He smiled warmly. "It's different from Poison in that Toxic's condition worsens as time goes on, as opposed to Poison which will leech a certain amount of damage each turn. It's truly horrible."

While before Casey had found Hikaru's politeness pleasant, it disturbed him somewhat now.

Beast grimaced as Rotom didn't want to move his mouth any wider than it had to be. And besides – the small Pokémon was already trying to prevent the Toxic sludge from pouring into his core.

"Rotom, Thundershock!"

As the rain of goop finally stopped, Rotom looked up into Golbat's eyes. The Mewforsaken Bat Pokémon* flew back to its proper position and awaited the move tauntingly, and when Rotom sent the attack flying Golbat simply flew higher and dodged it. The Thundershock-blob flew harmlessly into a wall.

Golbat stuck out its tongue tauntingly and, in accordance with its Trainer ("Golbat, if you could use Air Cutter on Rotom, that would be nice"), beat its wings so hard that slices of air started flying towards Rotom. The small orange Pokémon took them, shrinking its energy core as it did so, but finally endured the attack. It was then that the poison began to burn.

Rotom staggered as if he had just taken another hit.

Casey ground his teeth. Golbat looked rather beaten-up; if Rotom could deliver another Thundershock and wipe it out, then Casey would return his own Pokémon on the turn after that. Besides, the small Electric-Ghost didn't look like it was going to fall just yet.

"And again, you know what to do! Don't worry about it, this will be over soon…" He noticed the worried look on Beast's face and responded accordingly.

Rotom obediently sent another wad of electricity towards Golbat, who was now in the clearly strenuous process of bobbing up and down frantically.

"Why, Golbat, you read my mind!" said Hikaru, apparently delighted. "You knew I wanted you to use Rain Dance!" He put his hands on his hips and looked on in no less than sheer amazement as stormclouds began to swirl around the roof of the stadium. "See, Casey? This is why I like stadiums. Just imagine the damage that my office would cause."

"What?" breathed Sheridan, leaning forward in her chair. "He's using Rain Dance, increasing Rotom's power? What's that man up to?" Caro nodded in agreement, a few fingers on his chin as the boy wondered just what Hikaru was up to. A few seconds passed before her expectant eyes turned to Juan.

He merely snickered and gave off a few 'mrrhrrhrr's.

"Th-Thundershock," said Casey, with less force than he had in earlier repetitions of the word. "And – just for the record – I never asked about your office."


Rotom gathered its energy into one large, pulsating blob, and flung it towards Golbat with an unforeseen amount of force. (As a matter of fact, Casey could have sworn he heard Rotom groan with the effort.) It flew towards Golbat faster than the clunky Pokémon could retaliate, and sent the Mewforsaken Bat Pokémon* hurtling towards its Trainer. Hikaru, recognizing Golbat was down for the count, returned it before over 120 pounds of Pokémon meat was flung onto him.

As Hikaru returned his second Pokéball and Casey allowed himself a smug grin, Rotom gave a last little moan and tumbled to the ground. Needless to say, the smile was soon wiped off Casey's face.

Sheridan bit her lip.

"Well," said Caro, trying to find some sort of upside to the situation, "at least Honchkrow and Spectri-hair's last will be on equal ground. I bet it would have wiped out Rotom in a single turn anyway…"

"Honchkrow!"

"Fearow!"

Both Trainers realized what the others had said almost immediately. Casey looked surprised and sort of afraid as usual, and Hikaru looked rather triumphant. And the rain poured down on a black bird and a brown bird, both staring at each other like they'd just been ripped out of a Hoennian desert flick. Fearow was a towering brown Pokémon with tan-colored wingtips and a red crest that reminded Casey of a Mohawk. Its feathers were jagged and stuck out at odd angles, and there was generally just an air of alien-ness about it that no member of the Groupie Galaxy could recognize.

Juan leaned back in his chair, wormed his arms behind his head and used them as a pillow, crossed his legs, and laughed out loud.

The Fearow gave a grating caw. Honchkrow cawed in return. They were both trying to impress and scare the other. Hikaru looked at Casey's Pokémon with a sort of appreciation in his eyes for a second, before returning to Earth and continuing the battle. "My boy," noted the poncho-clad man chipperly, "you're dead meat." And he smiled. And he watched Fearow glow, watched the feathers around it quiver and wave like it was in the middle of a rainstorm (which it was). And he allowed the Pokémon to beat its wings and fly up in the air, past Honchkrow, past Casey and Hikaru, and up into the raincloud itself. And he watched the cloud react to Fearow's arrival. And he said:

"Thunder."

He also watched the wicked thunderbolt descend from the sky. He watched the surprise in Honchkrow's eyes turn to fear. He then watched them close. He watched the charred, singed bird fall to the floor. He watched his opponent recall the bird shakily, try to find a handrail to hold on to on the raised platform. He watched Casey fail in that attempt.

And he watched the boy crumple to the floor and black out.

Hikaru looked up to the raincloud. And he saw the most wonderful symbol in the world appear in the swirling clouds. He knew that the boy was seeing the same image burned into his closed eyelids. That's what they always saw. At the very same moment he heard the synonymous voices of CD0000, William, Kidd, and Aerith saying two words that rang loud and clear in his ears.

"Holy crap."



* 'Mewforsaken Bat Pokémon' is not Golbat's species name, but it really ought to be.

{12} let's make tracks​

Lounging in swivel chairs was surprisingly amusing.

Despite himself, the man sitting in such a swivel chair gave a very sinister chuckle. He was alone in a dark room on top of the highest tower on the eastern side of the Earth; who was going to hear him except his own conscience? However, he soon grew tired of acting childishly sinister (if that was even possible), and the man's only visible eye drifted down to the computer screen sitting in front of him, a bright box of light with Mew-knows-how-many recording… doohickeys hiding in the wings.

The man frowned at the possibility of this, took his arms out from their previous position of pillowing his head, and returned to the proper seated position. The computer was a sleek desktop computer which he had ordered for himself earlier that year, and right now it showed nothing but a generic desktop (he didn't care what it looked like).

Prodding the mouse with his right pointer finger, he raised his eyebrows at the text box that had appeared on screen.

"Oh look," he noted with a devious little smirk. "An update. I was getting bored here." With a few keystrokes expertly executed by his left hand, the Notepad program started up and… there. Waiting for him was a lengthy summary of events, written in his underling's trademark elegantly-scripted font. He swept the hair out of his right eye and pushed it behind his ear – reading on the computer one-eyed was not an easy task.

He poked the down key a couple of times and finished reading. Something at the end seemed to have displeased him, and by the frantic workout he was soon giving the keyboard and tracking mouse it looked like he intended to resolve it. After pulling his finger along a skinny gray wire attached to the web-camera now perched upon the monitor, he switched a few USB cables and finally reclined in his chair again as the unmistakable face of his accomplice showed up in yet another window.

"I've received your note," he began, interlacing his fingers and speaking in a way that would make a Bond villain green with envy. "Perfectly composed as per usual, Mr. Hikaru."

"That's wonderful," replied the man on the other end. "I trust that…"

"Sir!" called a voice from somewhere off-screen.

The fedora-clad man in the tallest building on the eastern side of the Earth raised his eyebrows as (after a brief confirmation of entry from the man on the other end) a BDV Grunt stormed in the room, panting and looking up at Hikaru worriedly.

"What is it?" asked Hikaru.

"Sir," said the Grunt after he had caught his breath, "there's just been a terrible discovery. More than one. They're terrible, they really are, I…"

"Calm down," said Hikaru, "and tell me what's happened."

Fedora Man watched on in silence.

"One, another one of the Grunts has possibly escaped. I don't know who, but we've just counted now and found a lack of one Grunt past the usual suspects to not show up, avoid counting, or tossed their tracking device out the window. Two, one of the Files has gone missing. It's Briefcase A, only basic information and a few profiles on the less dangerous specimens, but it still contains important information that should not be leaked. And three…" He paused and shuddered. "The Karmada are getting rambunctious."

Hikaru's eyebrows rose to match Fedora Man's. He stared at the Grunt for a few minutes, apparently deep in thought, and then drummed his fingers on the side of his head.

"The Karmada are hungry, you say? Good." Upon seeing the Grunt's confused expression, Hikaru chuckled and continued. "We can use this to our advantage, you see. Let them track down the escaped operative. Place the beta trackers on them, and specify for them to hunt down the person fitting all details we know about…"

The Grunt waved a hand to signal Hikaru to pause. (Fedora Man frowned.) He whipped out a standard-issue BDV Communication Machine (often referred to as a 'Mech') and listened to the message sent to him like a walkie-talkie partner. Finally, he smiled weakly and brought the Mech down from his ear.

"We have finished the inspection," he said. "CD0000 was reported missing, and his Mech tracking signal could not be found anywhere. It must have been destroyed…"

"Wonderful," replied Hikaru cheerfully. "Then send the Karmada to seek out a man carrying a very silly-looking hollow metal rod. Bonus points if he is holding a File. It shouldn't be too hard for them to hone in on him…"

-

Caro, being the (arguably) strongest member of the group, wound up carrying Casey on his back. Rotom hovered behind – originally he had tried to lie on Casey's back, but an irate and worn-down Caro had soon told him that the extra weight was definitely not appreciated.

The group, counting the unconscious Casey, now had four members. Both Caro and Sheridan kept casting anxious glances at the skulking figure in the background, a scrawny twenty-something with overgrown, messy brown hair and a rather narrow face shape. Over his shoulder was heaved a three-foot-long rod of metal, and in the opposite hand a very impressive-looking leather briefcase. He wore a long, billowing blue coat with a turned-down hood. Truth be told, his robe-ish jacket looked like it was exactly that: a robe.

CD0000's arm eventually got tired of wielding the pipe over his shoulder, and so (after taking a few steps back so as not to hurt anyone) swung it down from the previous position and vouched for the much easier option of simply holding it in his right hand.

They were currently wandering through the Holon Forest, Rhoter District – the mess of trees covered so much of the Region that it needed to be fenced off into Districts to avoid such cases as people coming in on the eastern side and out somewhere in the west. The Regional Government had recently had the wonderful idea to construct paths that cut right through the trees and over the water. One of these paths was what the Groupie Galaxy (and CD0000) were trekking along right now.

Eventually Caro settled on ignoring the shady twenty-something, and focusing more on keeping all available strength that could be used to haul Casey and himself. Sheridan, on the other hand, simply couldn't get his presence out of her head and attempted to learn more about him.

"So…" she said, backing up to fall into step with CD0000. "What's your name?"

CD0000 flicked his eyes towards her. (Sheridan found herself almost scared by the nearly-black shade of brown they held.) "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because," said Sheridan matter-of-factly, "if Casey does decide to let you join our little group, we've got to know something about you." Internally, she smiled; whether he should join the party was still under mental debate, but she did know next to nothing about him. She had expected some surprise on his part after she asked, but (even though she hated to admit it) his response caught her off-guard.

He looked at her wide-eyed and said, "You were serious about that?"

"Well, yes," said Sheridan, herself surprised at his response. "Why would we not be? After all, you clearly didn't want to be there, and considering you didn't have that suitcase earlier and you stomped on that little walkie-talkie in your pocket it doesn't seem like you intend on going back."

"No, it's not about the whole leaving thing," he responded. "Of course I wanted to leave. What I didn't think you were serious about was me… um, going. You know. With you guys. I didn't think you all would want a criminal escapee in your group."

Sheridan frowned back at him in response. "I don't care if you're a criminal escapee, alright? I don't think Casey would care that you're a criminal escapee. Caro can be easily convinced of your innocence. You're coming with us." Sheridan looked at him in a way that suggested that this was an order.

"Er," replied CD0000, taking a step away from her as he walked. "Um… alright… Wait. You wanted to know my name, right?"

Sheridan nodded.

"Please don't laugh; it's not really that funny when you think about it. I've had quite enough of people making fun of it. But… I'm Grant."

Caro cracked up.

Loudly.

"I told you not to laugh!" snapped Grant.

Sheridan, having foreseen this happening based mostly on instinct, held out her arm to prevent the blunt weapon Grant was carrying from making contact with Caro's head. She did well.

His eyes flicked to her outstretched arm for a second before he returned the metal rod to its previous position of resting on his shoulder, kept in place by his right hand. "Sorry 'bout that. Just… yeah." He didn't finish the sentence.

Caro grinned. "Sorry… it was funny."

Grant gave a defeated sigh.

-

Caro opened the door to the four-person Pokémon Center room the newly-expanded group had rented for the night. Casey (whose eyes were cracked open, but who didn't respond to any prompting) was lying on the small red-colored couch, Sheridan was scouring the small bookshelf in the corner for a time-waster that looked promising, and Grant seemed to have not moved from his spot in one of the two armchairs (both the same color as the couch) since they arrived. He was currently occupied with staring at a briefcase in his lap.

Without a word, Caro dropped a Pokéball and a JAWS on Casey's stomach before crashing into the other armchair, making it groan loudly and causing Grant to wince (without looking away from the briefcase).

"Hello," said Sheridan airily, selecting a lengthy volume with a Rapidash on the cover and walking over to Caro's chair, frowning at his stealing of her perch and sitting on the floor to read. "Everything went alright at the lobby?"

"Yeah, nobody tried to pester me once I said I was healing the Pokémon for Casey over here." He nodded to the boy, who was just then pushing himself to a sitting position. "Hey, you're back. Nice to see you again!"

Casey rolled his eyes and put his head in his hands. "What was that?"

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about…" said Caro breezily.

"I suppose you're going to tell me that Trainers always pass out when they lose battles," snorted Casey, reaching up to catch Rotom (who didn't seem to notice that his Trainer was right below him). "It would figure, what with all of the other crazy things you've got going on in this whole business!"

Grant peered over at him, one eyebrow raised. "You are new to Trainerdom, then?"

"You could say that," said Casey. "But what's in that suitcase you've got there?" He stood up and walked over to Grant's armchair, leaning on the back of the chair and looking down at it curiously. Caro turned around from his previous position (legs sprawled over the right arm of the chair, head and arms leaning off the left) and actually sat properly, so as to get a better look at the mysterious object.

"Things they won't need anymore, and that you all shouldn't be looking at," he grumbled, with a scathing glance around the room.

"'They'?" asked Casey, looking down at him quizzically.

"Aw, let me see it," said Caro, craning his neck.

Grant frowned, drumming his fingers on the ever-elusive case as he wondered just how much Caro would damage the things within. "Well… fine. Here." He slipped onto the floor. After carefully placing his metal pipe he dragged around onto the chair, Grant then concerned himself with standing on one knee as he fumbled to open the case. Soon, he had done that as well, and everyone else in the room moved to see what was inside. Within the ever-special briefcase was quite a lot of…

…papers.

Yes, papers. Certainly they were somewhat important-looking papers, documents even, but papers nonetheless. Caro – who no doubt thought it would be a cool super-weapon Pokémon or something – looked disappointed.

However, he soon got over it and snatched a paper from the top of the pile. "Lemme see this!"

Grant reached out a hand to stop him, but found only air in his grasp. With yet another defeated sigh (he seemed to be very well-practiced with these) the man waved the hand he had out in a motion to get Caro on with reading it and focused back on the 'case'* before him.

Caro settled back into his chair slowly, all distinguishing characteristics of a modern hyperactive teenager lost in the urge to further observe the thing in his hand.

It wasn't particularly frilly, and was in fact hand-written. Caro had to look a bit closer to make sense out of the squiggly handwriting the creator had used, but once he had he found the true purpose of the paper and it interested him quite a lot. 'Hm,' thought the brunet in his mind, 'imagine that. This is all some notes on those old Delta Species Pokémon who used to run around the region… everyone should know about those.' His eyes flickered to Grant.

"Where'd you say you got these again?"

"I didn't say where I got them," replied Grant distantly, still rummaging through the case.

"Oh. Cause this is all about the Delta Pokémon, and I didn't know who would really care about 'em these days." Sheridan plucked the papers handed to her out of aforementioned man's hands, sitting back into the chair to read them. She, after hearing that Caro's paper involved a rare variation of Pokémon, was now looking at them with renewed interest and vigor.

Casey, on the other hand, took one of the papers at random, scanned over it lazily, handed it back to Grant, and yawned.

"Guys?" he asked. "I'm getting tired. Can we get to bed now?"

"It's only eight, Casey," said Sheridan, not looking away from the papers. "You can go if you want, but we'll still be up."

"Fine." The young man placed the paper he was just holding in Grant's lap and plodded into one of the bedrooms. It wasn't long before he called out again: "Hey, guys?"

"What is it?" asked Grant, replacing the papers that hadn't been distributed back into the case. He left it on the floor as he entered the room now occupied by Casey, knowing Caro and Sheridan would likely tear it apart again as soon as he left. "What do you need?"

"Um," said Casey, flushing pink, "do I just sleep in my clothes or…"

"Yeah, if you weren't dumb enough to pack extra stuff, that's usually what you do. You are wearing something under that, right?" Grant was, of course, regarding Casey's pratically-alien outfit.

"Oh. Um. Yeah. Thanks… uh…" Casey paused.

"Grant," said the man himself, backing out again. "Now you go crash somewhere. We'll continue the research." As he closed the door and turned on his heel back to the common room – where Sheridan and Caro had, indeed, opened the briefcase again and were still poring over the letters inside – the man made an observation that was closer to truth than he thought.

"How old is that boy? He acts like a kid."

"Hmm," replied Sheridan, sounding decidedly unimpressed.

"Yeah." Caro nodded. "He does that sometimes."

"You've both found yourself with a pretty strange traveling partner," noted Grant, opening the window to let a rather large gust of cold air enter the room. (Sheridan quite enjoyed the chill, while Caro and his hoodie didn't seem to notice.)

Now, the room was definitely quite stuffy. And in any other situation, opening the window would have been a perfectly acceptable and quite wise thing to do. Unfortunately, though, this was not 'any other situation'; for zooming towards the window was an invisible horde of extremely quick Ghost-type Pokémon, all honed in on a certain man who was currently in the ownership of a blunt weapon and The Briefcase. And if Grant hadn't opened that window that night, he might have saved himself an awful lot of trouble and a considerable amount of pain in the future.

But, of course, he had to go ahead and do it.

And as Grant turned his back to the window and kneeled down to continue fishing through the (extremely strange) files with Caro and Sheridan, the aforementioned Ghost-types shot into the room. Without a second thought, they all wormed themselves nearer to him and eventually slipped into his brain.

There, they would lay dormant for an inexplicable amount of time, wearing no useful tracking devices. Beta anythings are prone to developing uselessness.



*Yes, that was terrible. Sorry.

Did I mention how much I like this fanfiction? Because I do. It's one of the best ones I've read in a while. The characters are memorable, and from the premise and onward it's a highly enjoyable OT fic in every way-- you don't resort to cliches or anything, you have fairly efficient characterization, and your plot is gripping.

Grant cracks me up because I know someone in real life named that. xD I don't exactly get how it's humorous in-universe though; sure, it's a bit undignified to have it in place of a cool codename like CD0000, but it's fairly normal otherwise. Unless it isn't, in which case you should probably explain that.

One thing that bothers me a little is how hard it is to follow the plot; I might have skimmed over the part when you explained WHY they were infiltrating the BDV hideout, and since the characters didn't really discuss what was happening, I got confused. Although I commend you for plummeting straight into the action without dawdling around with unnecessary sidequests and the like. Good show.

I like your DS+ material, too. There's lots of characters to keep track of, and while you provide adequate description most of the time, some of them are still hard to hold down (in particular, the BDV Admins' costumes). You might be better off simplifying, or just explaining it in vague terms and pointing readers to the DS+ at the bottom. Picture's worth a thousand words, after all, especially when it comes to fakemon and intricately-designed OCs. (And don't get me wrong; I love fakemon. Lovelovelove fakemon.)

Will be watching this eagerly for updates!

Hey, thank you! : D That means quite a lot to me, to know people are really enjoying it.

On the subject of Grant... I don't quite see what you're trying to say. 'Grant' is really just his name. There's actually no intended comedic value behind it, except for maybe the fact that it's only one letter away from 'grunt'. Since he's obviously merged with the group by now and gave his name, there was no further reason to use CD0000. Is there something wrong with it being fairly normal? D:

I agree with your comments on the description, though I can't really say much on the whole difficult-to-follow thing considering I'm the author and have everything mapped out in my head, even if it's not very well-explained. xD I know that I'm not the greatest in describing things, but I do try to keep it easy to understand... |3 I don't really like to tell people, "Okay, I got lazy on the description, so here's a picture instead! C:" because I really see it as being equal to shoving pictures of Pokémon into the story as they appear and saying "The Pokémon looked like this: [image]". But thanks for reviewing anyway! c:

"Sir, the tracking devices…"

"There's no reason to recount it. I know now what happened."

So, proclaimed Fedora Man, sitting once again in his little office at the top of the world. He was in yet another digital conversation with Hikaru, and was watching his Admin's surprised expression upon learning that he didn't need to break the news after all. "I have my methods, Hikaru, methods which will be revealed to you when they must be. You do understand that, I hope…"

"Of course, sir." Hikaru regained his composure and dipped his head in respect.

He had no idea that Fedora Man was lying through his sharp teeth.

"Thank you, Hikaru," replied Fedora Man with a chuckle, flipping the red hairs out of his eyes yet again. He leaned on the desk in front of him with fingers interwoven and said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to end this conversation now."

"There was nothing else I was to report, sir," said Hikaru. "Farewell."

Fedora Man wasn't one for goodbyes. Without giving Hikaru a second thought he jabbed a few buttons and the Admin's face disappeared. Fedora Man removed the headphones from his ears and replaced the telltale blue-and-yellow fedora; wearing it and listening to his Admins speak was a difficult task. Not to mention those sound systems that clipped to one's ear; they were just a waste of money.

Fedora Man shook his head at the unfortunate existence of those money-grabbing wares and continued to stare at the screen, which was now showing the usual program that his computer ran. Almost on instinct his eyes scanned over the green radius display, even though he knew that the Holon Tower's energy detector would come up with nothing as it usually did.

It's easy to imagine his surprise when it didn't do that at all.

There was a faint reading of Her skittering around the boundaries of the tower's range, moving closer in slowly but steadily. Fedora Man broke into a pleased smile which, considering the lighting in the room and his general air of dastardliness, came across as simply nasty. 'Shouldn't dive for Her too early,' thought Fedora Man. 'She might get frightened and run away again. And goodness knows how many times she's run away.'

He watched as the next video-chat request popped up on screen. Fedora Man pressed another button and waited with something like interest for the identity of his next caller (confound the lack of identification!). "Yes?" he asked as soon as he thought the line had been made.

"Hello," said a voice with a Snowpoint* accent. "I am calling you from a public video-phone… transmitter or… whatever this communication object is. I am also calling from what you call a Pokémon Center in the middle of the night. I've heard you are searching for my mother."

Fedora Man's jaw dropped.

It was not his Mew… it looked sort of like a Mew. It floated like a Mew. It had the same psychic signal as a Mew. Why, it even sounded like the little pink Pokémon. But if he was looking for this not-Mew's mother, then it was definitely not Mew. It must be… some sort of spawn of Mew. As Fedora Man realized this, he suddenly remembered the meeting that had occurred a few months back. The memories returned as if a floodgate had been opened.

"Amarachi of the Mewkizuu," he said with a smile that seemed much more imposing thanks to his pointy incisors. "Hello. How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you," said Amarachi coldly. Fedora Man could see she was all business. "I've called about something extremely important."

"I would assume you would, considering that most of the time your kind are not inclined to use the human technology of today," said Fedora Man. He leaned his head on one arm and gazed with great boredom at the digital, ever-moving image of Amarachi. "So enlighten me. What does this extremely important something concern?"

"It concerns your tower." Amarachi noticed the man's expression and continued. "Oh, yes, it's a fine, big tower. An exquisite tower. Please, I am not at all insulting your tower. However, the Mewkizuu have had a meeting. An ambassador of The One was present… you'll know who The One is, or else I mist say you're disrespecting your roots greatly."

"I know who The One is," said Fedora Man. "Continue."

"Lovely," said Amarachi bitterly. "Now, we the Mewkizuu had a meeting. We discussed with The One the problems your tower was causing… a colleague of The One reported a mysterious presence in his realm that we all believe has strong connections to your tower."

"And how is it connected?" asked Fedora Man, frowning.

"Are you aware of the Pokémon recently named 'Deoxys'?"

-

"Blair!"

"Good morning to you too, Professor."

Morning had dawned on Our Heroes, and Casey was right now in the middle of a truly gripping conversation between him and Professor Delilah Driftwood. Casey had been woken prematurely and as such was not in the greatest of moods, and was therefore a hypothetical blind man in a minefield. He was now holding his JAWS (plugged into the video-phone PC) in the lobby of the Pokémon Center. Caro and Sheridan were off to hold discussions with random Trainers, while Grant (who found himself with nothing better do) was now sitting in an armchair, staring at his Pinsir in its transparent Pokéball (imported from the region of Moga).

"Blair, you walked out without claiming a starter." Professor Driftwood didn't sound or look pleased.

"Oh. Sorry about that."

Professor Driftwood sighed. "You cannot just 'oh, sorry about that' your way out of this, Blair. Did you know the starter Pokémon I give out changes daily? Because you simply walked out before I could remind you that you needed to stay, I gave out all the rest of the starters. I hope you enjoy Poliwags." The PC made a whirring noise and, a second later, a Pokéball appeared on one of the red platforms within the PC visible only by a sheet of clear plastic.

The Pokéball dropped into another holding dock like returned change in a vending machine. Casey took it, looking at the red-and-white Pokéball curiously. "Poliwag?" he asked.

"Yes," said Professor Driftwood. "Now, before we get any farther, when will you be returning your Pokémon and JAWS?"

He looked up. "What?"

"You're surely wanting to reconsider your decision to be a Trainer by now."

"Uh… no, sorry, I'm not."

"Oh, really?" said Professor Driftwood, her disapproving stare morphing into one of surprise. "I would think that someone born in Calda wouldn't be quite so persistent. Well… have you made any headway, at least?"

"One badge from Rhoter," he replied. "Do you want to see it?"

"I don't need to," said Professor Driftwood with visible disgust. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't floundering around like a Drifloon in a tornado. Well, as long as you're doing something, fine. I'm signing off." And the screen went blank.

Casey didn't like Delilah Driftwood. There, he admitted it. He found her grumpy and hard to deal with. But as usual there were grumpy and hard-to-deal-with people in his universe, and after a moment Casey mentally concluded that this was just part of life.

'I shouldn't let it get to me too much,' he thought. 'It's probably just-'

"Hey! Casey!"

He blinked. Was that… 'Oh no.' Sighing, the boy ducked his head and spoke into the Megaphone Rock. "What do you want, Giratina?"

"Heya!" I chirped through the Megaphone Rock. "How's it going so far? I see you found a Water-type. That's nice. A good Water-type rounds out the team. So, anyway, even though you don't need it now that you've got a full team of shiny new Pokémon, go check your PC. I forgot to tell you earlier, but I've got some freebies. Though they aren't all that good – you're lucky I scrapped up Rotom for you, getting a Pokémon from His Royal Zoo isn't an easy feat – maybe you'd find some comfort in knowing I do sort of care about you."

"Gee, thanks." Casey pressed the necessary buttons on his PC and observed the small pictures of the three Pokémon stored inside. Frowning at them, Casey had to agree about the 'not all that good' part, but he decided to make sure, just in case. "Hey! Caro!" he called, turning around to look for him.

The hoodie-wielder in question wasn't engaged in epic conversation at the moment, and darted over quicker than Casey thought possible. "Yeah?"

"I got these Pokémon from… a friend of mine. Could you check 'em out, see if they're any good?"

Caro stood up to his full height and frowned at Casey. "Now, Casey, whether a Pokémon is good or not depends not on its species, but the Trainer who raises it. In fact, one of the most powerful Trainers in the world once said, 'Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. They're only the false perception of people' or something. But anyway, you shouldn't be…"

"Yes, Caro, thanks for that," said Casey. "But could you please look at them anyway?"

"Oh yeah, man, sure." Caro stepped to Casey's side and peered over his shoulder at the Pokémon onscreen. "Hey, Casey…" he said after a few minutes of extremely concentrated staring.

"Yeah?"

"I don't know if this friend of yours is the best person to be accepting gifts from. I mean… a Sentret and Taillow really aren't the most stellar choices you could have made when choosing Pokémon."

"Oh," said Casey. "Figures Giratina would give me something useless…" he muttered in a lower voice. He had meant to only think that, but evidently his miserable early-morning mind had different plans. The damage was done.

"Whoa, whoa!" said Caro, turning around to gaze at him in awe. "Did'ju say that Giratina gave these to you?"

"Um…"

"Man, that Pokémon is a total nut case! I hosted a discussion with her once with some of my friends. It was in her dimension, and she was changing the color and making loud music play and flinging people around and writing in the air and everything!" He laughed. "I'm surprised you lived through receiving a gift from her with your sanity intact."

And worse than that, Casey heard snickering coming from his bandanna.

Caro listened for a second, and then looked surprised. "Hey, where have you got some sort of walkie-talkie from her from? 'Cause she has a tendency to not really mind her manners, and I coulda sworn I heard her back in Holon the city. So I guess she got you to do something stupid."

Caro. Do not insult your author. That is seriously not a good idea. So maybe when you've discovered the Internet and end up reading you finally get a clue.

…Wait. Ahem.

"Well…" said Casey, stalling for time. But Caro persisted on the subject, and eventually Casey figured that since Caro already knew about Giratina then it couldn't hurt to explain. "Actually, yeah. She does have a walkie-talkie thing on me. Very near my mouth… see? It's actually jammed somewhere in that handkerchief around my neck. Evidently she ripped it off something that does the same thing…"

"Sounds like her," said Caro with a nod. "Well, anyway, man, that's seriously really cool that you met a Legendary. I mean, like, I would have never met one at all if I hadn't gotten this real one-in-a-million chance with going on a trip with these two friends of mine – yeah, remember, Kris and the not-really-big-brother-mentor-guy – and I used to live around with Pokémon literally all over." Caro waved his hands in the appropriate motions, including a grand sweeping motion right after his last words. "So when people ask if you've seen a Legendary yet, they're probably like joking or something. Only either really cool people or really boring people – or occasionally really crazy people – see Legendaries in their lives."

"Er… Legendaries?"

Caro blinked.

"So… what are these Legendaries, then? Are they like Giratina? She was hanging around with some other Pokémon… Palkia and a little green pixie thing with a head like an onion. Were those…?" Casey cut his sentence short.

Caro was slack-jawing at him.

"Um…" said Casey, in a frail attempt to fill in the silence between the duo.

"Dude…" said Caro after a minute.

"Yes?"

"You're… you're sure you haven't broken any intergalactic laws or something? 'Cause that's a lot of Legendaries you saw. I mean, other than Kris and—well, aside from my friends, I've seen the highest Legendary count. And that's two. But you've seen three! How do you do it? Is there like… some sort of Legendary-attracting ancestry you've got?"

"I should hope not," said Casey with a frown, recalling where exactly his ancestry came from. (It quite scared him that his thoughts hadn't strayed back to Calda in an exceptionally – for him – long time.)

"Well, whatever. Just… don't go strutting that you've seen 'em, okay? Especially not to Sheridan. No offense, but I think that with all her rare Pokémon hunting she'd… well, you'd never get an ounce of sleep until you've learned to channel out her voice."

Casey snickered. "Yeah, sure."

Caro pressed a button and turned off the PC.

Perfectly timed, Sheridan appeared out of thin air to Casey's left. "So you're on the Badge course, right? If so, I think you'll be looking for Rhion." Sheridan gestured to something on the wall.

Caro walked a few paces to the left and checked out one of the millions of region maps plastered on the almost sickeningly-sweet cream and pink walls. "Looks like the next stop is Rhion City as Sheridan said, better known as Fort Rhion. Electric-types…" He turned back to Casey. "What Pokémon do you have on hand?"

"Um… Rotom, Honchkrow, and that one Poliwag…"

"Kid," said Caro, slinging an arm on his shoulder and sighing dramatically, "I think you're going to get a lesson on getting your Pokémon's carcasses handed to you on a silver platter. …In other words, you're at a serious disadvantage here."

"Because of Types?"

"Yessir. My recommendation: get out there and find a nice, shiny Ground-type. Or at least something that won't dig up old memories of the whole Fearow issue."

"I've been thinking about that, you know," said Sheridan almost randomly. "Research has been performed. And all results I've found point to one answer."

"Which is?" asked Casey.

"That Fearow shouldn't exist," Sheridan replied simply.

"I thought so," said Caro after a few seconds of vacant gawking. "Um, I mean, it doesn't make much sense for a Pokémon to learn a move with a type that's powerful against it. Except for Dragon-types, because they're powerful against themselves and stuff."

"Right," said Sheridan grimly. "I don't know how he got that Fearow to use Thunder, but I'm pretty dubious on its legitimacy."

"How do you get an illegitimate Pokémon?" asked Casey. "I mean, they're Pokémon, living creatures. They can't be changed, right?" He ignored the giggling that spouted from the Megaphone Rock.

"Well," began Sheridan. "Do you know of the Delta Species? They're Pokémon who received a type change and power increase and so on that were generated by the tower over west of here. The builders of the tower – the scientists – changed Pokémon. Some men in Kanto made a Pokémon with a full evolution line and everything out of some computer data. And some other men in Kanto – who I don't recommend you speak of too much, I might add – took a Pokémon's eyelash and used it to build a totally new one, with form and powers and being. They made a Pokémon. So yeah, if you're messed up and well-funded enough to do it, I guess you could make a Fearow use Thunder."

"Legit points," said Caro.

"Alright, thank you," said Casey, who was trying not to make it too obvious that he had been swamped by information. "So… next city. Rhion, was it?"






*think northern New Jersey. 'Snowpoint accents' are actually used across most of northern Sinnoh, stopping around the line created by Eterna Forest's southern border. The Unown Dialect and Snowpoint accent sound extremely familiar.

For now, a review on chapter 1 and 2!

So far I'm enjoying this fic, I must say. =) Interesting and fun to read thus far. I quote like the not-too-serious sort of style you've gone here (or so it seems to me). It suits the story, I feel. Casey makes for an interesting protagonist, as you refer to him from time to time amusingly, and Giratina's part in chapter one was quite amusing as well.

I also like the idea with setting it in a region which has actually gone and banned Pokemon due to the realistic look on how problematic they could be and all. On top of that there's Rotom (I like the characterisation of it, kinda how I imagine Rotom to be like actually), some nice exchanges in dialogue and amusing/cool chapter titles, and you've got a good beginning. Plot seems fine to me thus far - you've made the 'person who will save the world' sort of story this is seemingly going to be a rather interesting one, in part due to the writing style.

My main qualm with the fic thus far is that the many changes of POV with the scene changes is somewhat unsettling for me - it seems every time there's a scene change the style changes once again (mostly with this instance in chapter 2):

He was dragged to the side with great force before his feet even touched the ground. Rotom squirmed his way out of Casey's lightened grip before the latter fell to the ground, unconscious.

-

"Shut up,"..............................The voices faded. I descended into sleep again.

-

Once Casey was quite sure he was going to remain conscious, he opened his eyes. However, the boy quickly shut them again. The dragon-thing was returning (though she had a different body shape, the spiky head-dress was the same), and she had brought along a buddy just as scary and imposing as she was.

I recoiled with a rather feminine squeak, surprised at him actually waking up again.

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I though until the last line there that it was back with the previous style/POV, so the fact you suddenly started the sentence there with 'I recoiled' surprised me slightly. It was a minor thing and not that unsettling truth be told, but still something that occurred to me when reading at the time.

I also admit that the Mightyena-head-thingamajig that Rotom had there confused me as well, although I found the explanation and figured it out after a bit of re-reading then as well. However maybe you should consider looking at that part and maybe tweak it slightly for clarity's sake? (Part of the confusion I suppose was also the mentions of 'Duskull' to describe, which led me to being confused partly, I believe.

The writing style at times sounds somewhat odd, although I suppose it's the result of the fact you've chosen to go for this and the run-on-tangents way you tend to go on occasion (such as here:

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.

Of course, there was no French boy genius sitting at the computer. For one thing, there is no France. Ha ha, what could have ever put such an absurd thought in your mind? No, there was something much more impressive than a boy genius from a surely made-up land called 'France'.

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) and the such amuses and fits - I suppose it both seems a bit awkward due to it running on tangents, and fits because it feels like you're going for this anyway and it's funny to boot. =P

A young boy sat slumped in his seat, watching the rain continue its attempt to be as loud as it could while crashing against the window. Limp brown hair flopped against the glass, letting gravity take over entirely.

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The last part of this sentence sounds odd somehow... I can deduce you're talking about the hair which is 'letting gravity take over entirely', but I think it could be worded a bit clearer... maybe 'attempt to be as loud as it could while crashing against the window. Limp, brown hair let gravity take over it entirely as it flopped against the glass.' ? Speaking of which, a comma may fit in-between 'Limp' and 'brown', although I quickly realise it's not the best time to think this for me. >_< I go by a 'if-you-can-put-an-'and'-in-between-the-two-a-comma-probably-fits rule, so 'Limp and brown hair let gravity...' seems to fit...to me leastways. <_<

Without getting into specifics, quite a while ago (before he was born, in fact) the local regional government had decided it was better for the region and its human inhabitants if super-powered monsters weren't running around the cities and nearby land. Pokémon and the spherical things that share almost the same name were no longer allowed, and hunts immediately ensued to catch and destroy all remaining wild Pokémon (which, seeing as Calda is an island surrounded entirely by water, is slightly easier than it sounds).

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Again, I liked the premise of this - quite an interesting one to actually be used in a fic, methinks. The 4th-wall-breaking-esque style is normally somthing I'd warn against as well, but you do it right I feel, so good job with this. =)

Slipping in a seat just as the final bell tolled the fanfare of glory for some students and the screech of death for others, a middle-aged man with slick black hair stood up from his previous sitting position. He was wearing a rather formal white shirt and black pants, as well as thick glasses that caught the radiance of the fluorescent strips of lights that shone above him.

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I don't believe you need the comma there after pants. (Heh, pants. -_-) I'm also unsure about the usage of 'rather' formal there - it seems a touch odd. Maybe just go without the word 'rather'? Doesn't appear to make much of a difference either way though, but it strikes me as unnecessary.

"Time is up. The tests are being passed out now. Please put away any notes, textbooks, and cell phones you may have on your person."

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Random thought - with my exams it's usually the case that even with reading/prep time cell phones are to be put away before even entering the room...heh.

Of course, there was no French boy genius sitting at the computer. For one thing, there is no France. Ha ha, what could have ever put such an absurd thought in your mind? No, there was something much more impressive than a boy genius from a surely made-up land called 'France'.
There was the highly brilliant, attractive, intimidating, and very fearsome Giratina the most wonderful and incredibly skilled ringleader of the best Alternate Universe ever crea-

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There isn't? D= But Giratina's part here was quite amusing and fun to read - my favourite part thus far of this.

By now, he's more of a… biologically advanced Aipom… assuming humans evolved from Pokémon in a different way than normal… thing.

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One of the many awkward yet amusing sentences. XD

"There is not. Just cloak yourself in shadow or something."

"Cloak- I can't do that!"

"You could a few years ago in Sinnoh…"

"Th- that never happened! You have no proof I ever did that! I erased it from the Archives and from the memories of the mortal masses! And I don't trust your judgment, because I'm the only other person here! Though… it's not a bad idea…"

"See? I was right. There IS a way to do it."

"Be quiet, you. I need to think. Go frolic in the Reverse World or something."

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And an amusing end to the scene.

But alas, he couldn't, so he boy merely settled for staring at him.

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the, I believe.

Cut to Saturday morning, about eleven AM. Casey was now running as quickly as he possibly could in an attempt to get as far away from the highly-unpleasant-looking group of cops trailing behind him as he could.

All could be blamed upon Rotom.

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XD I liked the way you did this time-skip here. You do comedy well, I feel.

"No, not all Pokémon talk. Palkia and I are speaking in the Unown Dialect, which is very similar to your own language.

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I like this explanation, here - nice.

"Fate Knows Where You Live," I said sagely. "You, of all people, should know that."

"Yeah, well Fate isn't exactly here right now, is it?" Casey snorted.

Palkia cleared his throat loudly.

"Oh."

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Stuff like this in the scene was rather amusing. XD

Anyway, you happen to have a very lovely little Path. And the first thing to realize to follow this path is…" I paused, presumably for dramatic effect. "You don't need this place anymore."

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Only instance where the capitalisation of words/phrases (like in the previous quote!) within the scene seemed odd - Path and path struck me as slightly odd, is all - maybe it would be best to be consistant and stick to one for the word Path/path?



Overall I like this thus far, and have no complaints (rather praise) for the characters, and the plot is interesting thus far - certainly am looking forward to reading the next chapter, only I need sleep. >_< Comedy is a highlight as well thus far - again, you carry that factor well. I feel a bit iffy with the changes in POVs between scenes, but it was mostly in the aforementioned instance, and the change in chapter 1 to Giratina's scene.

Hopefully I'm more coherent with my next set which'll be in a couple of days I predict? >_<



EDIT - CHAPTER 3!Another entertaining chapter there - short but amusing with Casey's transformation there. (BTW I liked the added picture in the author's notes about it, heh). The group of legendaries are an interesting bunch to read about, and Zero intrigues me as well - I wonder about his hour of roaming... his indigiance about being called the guy with 'crazy white hair' was amusing as well. XD

I do wonder a bit on why they can't just teleport Casey out of danger there after they could change his appearance (although I suppose I'd have to complain to Palkia about that. ;P) However I wouldn't mind seeing an explanation for it int he story, if there isn't one in future chapters, that is.

Naturally, the first thing Casey did when he woke up was look downward – but my wings were in the way to block his view.

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I suppose one must have priorities, huh? *shot*

The muffled scream still rang loud and clear in my ears, but at least it was soft enough to keep all of the nearby residents of Calda City (these humans can be SO original…) asleep and ignorant of approximately a million illegal things happening in their beloved safe-haven.

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I'm unsure about 'safe-haven' there - maybe 'safe haven' would work (slightly) better there.

It was a multi-spiked masterpiece that I had convinced the Unown (otherwise known as the Gravity Gods and watchers of the Ancientpowers, the things which gave Legendaries their otherworldly skills) to lift – no pun intended – it from their standard rules of gravitational logic.

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At times the long sentences still confuse slightly, even if it is in Giratina's nature to go off in tangents. Maybe some slight re-wording wouldn't hurt though just to clarify things a bit more. (There was not much of this problem in this chapter though). Maybe, for instance, shifting 'no pun intended' into another sentence following this one (e.g. '...to lift it from their standar rules of gravitiational logic. ...No pun intended with 'lift' there, honest.') is a way to keep in the tangents, but clarify what is being said some more by Giratina. (As I really like Giratina as a character and hence the tangents as well. XD)

The eyes had changed color too – what was once a rather dreary blue color had turned stormy gray.

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stormy-gray, perhaps?

In any case, his hair was really odd. The eyes had changed color too – what was once a rather dreary blue color had turned stormy gray. His face had grown narrower (probably an after-effect of Celebi's 'artificial' aging process), which made the funky hair all the more noticeable. His outfit was a purple one-piece rubbersuit similar to the one that hyperactive Kanto Champion… ah… Lance. Yes. His rubbersuit was similar to that of Lance, down even to the boots (which pushed up the legs of the suit, and were black with red stripes and soles). The only exception was that Casey's was roughly the shade of a Sableye. He was also wearing blue gloves, which basically limited the amount of exposed skin to his face and part of his neck.

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Here in the middle, three out of four sentences (and one a one-word sentence) started with 'His' with the description of his new form there. It tends to make it feel more like a detailed list as a result (His ____. His ____. His _____.). I'd reword slightly and replace one of the 'The's with another word to avoid that. Minor though.

"Fate knows where you live, kid," he said.

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I do wonder if the titles shall continue reappearing within the chapters, heh.

BTW The text size of chapter 3 was rather large compared to other ones - maybe adjusting it would be something to keep in mind presentation-wise, is all, even if it's pretty minor.


Chapter 4 - another interesting one, this. Introduced to the Holon region which sounds like an interesting place (or leastways thus-far the city). I like the mentions of other leagues and regions and so forth there - I enjoy seeing such stuff like this here. =) Rotom is continuing to be amusing in the background there, and it's interesting to see Casey get around without really knowing what he's meant to do, even with Giratina interject every so often. I wonder what starter Pokemon he'll end up with (assuming he gets one =P)?

I noticed that whenever a new character is introduced, you do description in the same way by getting it out almost as soon as possible in the next paragraoh or few, with a good deal of attention to clothes. It's not bad (and some of it is quite enjoyable to read), but it begins to get a bit repetitive after a while. Maybe some re-organising of it by spreading out the description of new characters - maybe shifting in some dialogue or actions in-between said description - would be something to consider if you wish to edit it, so it's comes off as slightly less blocked-out, and as mentioned less repetitive and predictable in structure.

It was then Casey found himself very fortunate to be in an airplane, where there were some body-heat generators at the least.

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This sentence struck me as a bit odd when I read it...seems a rare-occurance, but it just sounds off to me. Maybe consider rewording to something like 'As a result Casey found himself very fortunate to be in an airplane, surrounded by some body-heat generators.' ? Up to you on how you do it, if you do it.

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.

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Last the sky was mentioned it was of the sunrise set of colours instead of blue..although it's implied some time has past between the two, maybe you could spell it out a bit more that it was no longer dawn, or later in the morning? Not really necessary though, I feel, but it could be something to think about, I suppose. *shrugs* Maybe more importantly though - too over that 'to' there.

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.

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XD Sounds like quite the amusing feat. (Or is that feet?) I continue to like the bit sof comedy every now and then. =)

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.

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For some reason there was this larger-than-normal gap in-between these two paragraphs - if not intentional, I'd shorten it to the normal size for presentation's sake.

It was a two-story building, wider than it was tall, with a forest green paint job.

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forest-green, methinks?

Rotom seemed interested, though, and halted his orbit to perch near Caro's head about half way through his explanation.

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Pause created by the first comma there sounds a bit odd there - you could go without it, methinks. Halfway as one word as well.

That'll do for me today - again good work with this - the plot seems to be progressing nicely, and the description is nice (bar the little bit about describing people I mentioned before). Fvoruite part for me though are the (sometimes eccentric) characters though, heh. I look forward to reading more. =)

Six people (and a computer) sat around a table.

It was a rounded table, large and intricately carved out of wood. At the six areas of the table where the points of a pentagon would be was a chair, one person sitting in each chair. One of the people, a woman sitting on the bottom left spot, had an opened laptop computer next to her. She was currently in the process of pressing certain keys on the computer, occasionally speaking into it with short phrases like "Um…" and "Can you hear me?"

After a few minutes of this, there was a reply. "Yes, Anima, I can hear you perfectly fine. There are no communication errors whatsoever. Now can we please get this over with?"

"Wait!" said another woman, sitting to the left of Anima (who was now staring at the computer and blinking). "How do we know it's you? Is someone tapping into our computer systems?"

An irritated sigh spilled from the computer speakers. "Mina, it is ME. In case you had forgotten, you have asked whether it was me speaking every time that we got together for one of these, and it has always been me! Must I spell it out for you?"

"Rodney—" protested Mina, pulling the headphones previously around her ears down to dangle around her neck. She flicked some auburn hair out of her already quite short-cut hairstyle, and leaned over to stare into the computer screen.

"Evidently, yes I do," said Rodney. He did not sound happy. "I. Am. The. Gym. Leader. Of. Raxi. City. And yes, Anima, I know, don't say it again. Shall I continue?"

"Yeah, thanks. We get the point," grumbled another man, sitting on Anima's other side. He adjusted the pale blue beanie hat on his head and scowled at the camera. "You're Rodney. Good. Peachy. Now be quiet, can't you? Like you said yourself, we've got business to attend to."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Rodney's side of the line, implying he was about to raise his voice, but he evidently thought better of it and released the air soon after. "Fine."

"Thank you," said Mina with a frown once everyone present had died down. "With no further interruptions, I'm quite sure we are ready to begin the meeting properly. Any objections?" Nobody objected. "Good. First order of business: Pokémon. Marianne, I have your missing Pokémon right here." Mina pulled out a red-and-white Pokéball and handed it across the table to the young lady now beaming wildly.

Marianne snatched the Pokéball and cuddled it tightly, singing in a high pitched tone, "Cloysterrr~ Coysterrrr~ my baaaa-by~…" The two people on either side of her – a well-muscled man with a red shirt and a skinny white-haired guy who had an electric guitar sitting in his lap – tried to inch away from her as inconspicuously as possible.

"Buck. Garret." Mina sent them a warning glare. The two men shared a quick wide-eyed glance and returned their chairs to the proper position, mumbling apologies under their breath.

"Thank you," said Mina with false cheeriness. "Now then… we're fortunate enough to have a few words from the Champion for us all to listen to. It was a typed-up letter directed specifically to us, and I expect that you're all going to listen quietly while I read his letter out loud… and no, Anima, you can't read it this time."

There was a unanimous groan from the rest of the people at the table.

Mina ignored the whining and whipped out a piece of paper, folded into thirds. She pulled the paper apart so the text on it could be read, and began to read the Champion's letter to his subjects.

"Members of the Holon gym circuit—Hello! I haven't contacted you in quite a while, and I apologize for that, but some difficulties on my side of the fence have prevented me from composing letters in time for those monthly meetings I know you're all so fond of." There was more general scowling; not many of them truly enjoyed seeing (or hearing) each other on a constant basis. "However, I have found time in my busy schedule – which is currently overflowing with projects to make our Region better for everyone – to compose a letter in time for your meeting…"

"He managed to contain his ego-stroking to only a few sentences," said Rodney flatly. "Quite an accomplishment."

Mina scowled at the laptop and continued to read.

-

Casey sidestepped a ditch in the ground.

The foursome was right now walking along a well-beaten path, surrounded entirely by particularly large trees. Sheridan, seeing an opportunity to go into tour guide mode, happily pointed out, "This forest has been here for ages, and it's been specially protected by the Holon government. It was a stretch just to get established paths out here, if I recall correctly."

"Right," said Grant absently, not bothering to pull his head down from the clouds before responding. He was still carrying his pipe and The Briefcase.

A silence descended over the group, having come to a stopping point in their admittedly not-quite-riveting discussion. For a while, the only sound was shoes crunching against stray twigs and the occasional cough or yawn. Sheridan stopped to look around for a moment, and the entire procession crashed to a halt as the others turned back to look at her quizzically. After a few seconds of remaining frozen in that pose, Sheridan shook her head and continued to walk.

However, she turned around at exactly the wrong time.

"Sorry," she said, completely unaware that her entire group was being watched, "I thought I heard a little sound."

"Probably just a wild Skitty," replied Grant with a shrug.

"Though why anything would be hanging around here is beyond me…" said Casey with a hint of weariness in his voice. "We've been walking all day, and if we don't find a way out of here before nightfall we're probably going to freeze to death or something."

"Don't forget, you signed up for this!" called Caro.

The boy scowled and continued walking.

Some ways behind them, trailing along after the group in the underbrush, was a… well, a something. It was perhaps a human something, or maybe a human-shaped Pokémon something, but it was hard to tell considering almost all of the body was covered by fabric in one way or another. Every so often, someone would stop and look around, and their reasoning was always the same – they could have sworn they had heard a little voice, or a crunching noise that didn't come from the others, or had just gotten the feeling that something else was there. This would cause a chain reaction, urging the others to stop and look around too. After they had convinced themselves that nobody was hiding in the dark, the procession would continue.

This pattern repeated itself until about noon.

Sheridan had just finished concluding that it was probably a curious Pokémon looking to find out what people were doing in their forest. By now, nobody looked convinced, and all residents of the Groupie Galaxy were looking around nervously for anything that was too out-of-place in the light-sucking woods.

And then, as they turned a corner, they were staring into the mask of a little girl.

This girl was standing in the middle of the trail, standing no higher than four and a half feet. She was wearing a very heavy pink cape that went down to her waist, and under that was a purple shirt and pants. On her hands were pink gloves, and she wore leather boots. This was all pretty distracting in its own right, but without a doubt the creepiest thing about her was the face. Framed by long red hair was a big, pale pink mask with lots of spikes on the side and three tiny black dots – two where her eyes would be, and one near her nose. Her mouth was pulled up into a tight pout.

The girl and the adventurers stared at each other in silence.

"Um," said Casey, "excuse us…"

"Yeah, we were just getting through the forest…" mumbled Caro, who – despite his immense experience with decidedly scary people – was quite unnerved by this mute little thing. "Sorry 'bout that. If we were, you know, intruding or anything."

"Do you know if we will be out of here soon? Where the forest ends and the road begins and that sort of stuff?" asked Grant.

Sheridan blinked.

The girl stared back at them, not moving and remaining mute. She didn't even flinch when Rotom zoomed up directly into her face and chirped, "Hi! Who're you?"

"What's your name?" asked Sheridan gently, walking towards her and swatting away Rotom in the same motion. "Are you lost?"

The girl's mask stared. She didn't move.

Sheridan looked at her for a few minutes, then reached out again. "Poor kid. You're lost, aren't you? Here, let me take off that mask for you. You probably can't see anything with it on, right?" She took a step forward and reached for the mask.

The girl raised her gloved hands and held the mask to her face.

"Or not," said Sheridan, straightening up again. "Okay, then."

"Give it up, Sheridan," called Caro from behind. "She's not gonna talk. Let's go."

Sheridan turned around and frowned at him before returning her gaze to the girl. "You're sure you're going to be okay out here by yourself?"

No response.

"Um…" she mumbled, sidestepping a few paces and continuing to walk. "Okay then. Bye."

The others followed suit. Grant, though, stopped as he passed the girl and looked down at her. "What's your name?"

The girl twisted her head to stare up at him, but her face didn't change. Grant nodded as if this was an acceptable answer and looked to the road again; he broke into a run once he had realized the others had disappeared from sight.

She turned her entire body around and watched him scramble off in silence, until she was quite sure he had left. And then she said, in a meek little voice that sounded like the chirping of a young Skitty:

"Amarachi."

She stood there for a few moments, thought, and then ran after them.

Not too far behind where Amarachi had been standing there were three other creatures, these ones with distinctly more malevolent ideas in mind for the Groupie Galaxy. One was a bulky man in a blue coat, another a lithe woman of about thirty, and the third was a Delcatty. They had been lurking in the shadows and watching the adventurers, but once the new kid came into the picture…

"She looks familiar," said Aerith.

"I do think I've seen her around before," replied Kidd.

Billy shrugged.

"Do we investigate it?" wondered Kidd.

"We do," said Aerith with a sneaky little grin.

And the three got up from their hiding place of scrunched behind a bush and, after a brief pause to dust themselves off (no self-respecting member of Team BDV would be caught in such a scruffy outfit) they ran ahead to find the kid.

She was gone.

"Well, whatever," said Aerith almost immediately, shrugging off the loss of the creepy girl with a toss of the head. "We weren't looking for her anyway. We're just out here to get back The Briefcase and pummel the turncoat to a pulp, right? So they're both ahead on the trail. If anything, she'll be protecting Mook and The Briefcase, and we can't have that."

The two humans nodded their agreement and walked forward. Kidd did not see it appropriate to mention that she really did think the girl was familiar somehow.

Amarachi, who was sitting in a tree watching them, waved her arm and hopped away in between the trees. Three hours later, Billy, Kidd, and Aerith would wake up collapsed in the middle of the forest being sniffed by a bunch of Mightyena currently in the process of wondering whether they were dead food already or if they ought to be attacked again before being eaten.

Aaaaand once again I fail to notice you posted. XD Sorry!

My main qualm with the fic thus far is that the many changes of POV with the scene changes is somewhat unsettling for me - it seems every time there's a scene change the style changes once again (mostly with this instance in chapter 2):

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Good point there. Giratina's tense-switching tendencies (not all authors are perfect, heh heh) do seem to mess with the flow of things, don't they?

and the such amuses and fits - I suppose it both seems a bit awkward due to it running on tangents, and fits because it feels like you're going for this anyway and it's funny to boot. =P

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Well, at least it's not completely awkward, which suggests I'm going on tangents at least somewhat well. |D However, I can't agree with that last bit: I don't actually 'go' for writing that way - it's just the way I write!

I do wonder a bit on why they can't just teleport Casey out of danger there after they could change his appearance (although I suppose I'd have to complain to Palkia about that. ;P) However I wouldn't mind seeing an explanation for it int he story, if there isn't one in future chapters, that is.

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Actually, the reason Casey was walking it out on his own was because I had a little problem with transportation scenes in Metal Coat. Remember? Going everywhere with the help of a Pokémon (flying on its back, being teleported, whatever) is certainly an accurate portrayal of the series, but it sure is boring. And besides, I needed to get that scene in there - otherwise, Sheridan would never have seen him, and they would never have noticed each other in Rhoter, and so on and so forth.

Random thought - with my exams it's usually the case that even with reading/prep time cell phones are to be put away before even entering the room...heh.

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Rules are made to be broken.

I do wonder if the titles shall continue reappearing within the chapters, heh.

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Since a lot of the titles are song lyrics, unless there's a spontaneous karaoke night I doubt that I'll specifically try to put them in again. Unless, of course, it's said by a 'comedic effect' fourth-wall-attacking character like the more laidback Legendaries.

(bar the little bit about describing people I mentioned before)

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So true. I do have a mysterious tendency to screw up on whatever attempts at description I make. There's no other way I know how to do it, unfortunately! However, just so this post has a purpose...


"Um," said Casey, "hi."

The sun had long since fallen below the horizon, and the time read about nine o'clock. Mr. Blair was taking a leisurely nighttime stroll around the outdoor botanical garden attached to the back of the Pokémon Center (he suspected it was there to make up for the abundance of metal everywhere else) when the kid from earlier showed up once again in his path, sitting in the middle of the road staring up at him. This time, though, she actually made an attempt to talk.

"Hello," said the masked girl.

Casey, who due to the late hour and his own failure to think, couldn't come up with a way to ease into his intended subject casually. "So why are you stalking me?"

"I'm not stalking you," she replied, unmoving.

"Uh, yeah, you sort of are. I mean, wherever I went you were always somewhere near me and watching, right? I felt you looking at me all day. That's stalking to me."

Though Casey couldn't see it, she raised her eyebrows. "I'm not stalking you," said the girl. "I don't even know your name."

"Casey Blair," he replied. "Now you do. So who're you, then?"

"Who was your friend in the blue coat?" asked Amarachi innocently.

"Grant. Now what's your name?"

"Does he work for a bunch of Pokémon?"

"What the… no! What gave you that idea?"

"He smelled like Pokémon. Lots of them."

Casey sighed. This girl clearly wasn't all there in the head. "Listen. He probably smells like Pokémon, but so do I and everyone else. We had just got out of a place infested with Pokémon, okay? I don't know what you're here for, so if you could just give me your name or get out of here, either one of those would be just fine with me."

"I won't leave," said Amarachi.

"Well, then…" Casey's patience was being tested for the fiftieth time since The Giratina Incident. "If you're not going to leave, then what's your name? At least tell me that."

"If I told you what I am then I would be lying because I'm not that," she replied.

Casey opened his mouth to reply, and then noticed the problems with the question 'So what ARE you, then?' according to his masked companion. "That makes no sense! If you're something, then you're that thing… but I'm not asking what you are. I mean, you're human. Anyone can see that. I'm asking who you are. Who are you?"

Amarachi stared.

"Name?" he repeated impatiently.

Amarachi stared.

"What do you go by?" The boy was sufficiently steamed by now.

Amarachi stared.

Casey was about to begin shouting when he heard a sigh emanating from somewhere in the general area. He turned his attention (and rage) on the owner of that sigh.

"Giratina, what do you want?" he snapped into the Megaphone Rock.

"Whoa, whoa, watch it there," came the reply from the Goddess of Never-Turn-Back. "Sorry I called at a bad time… but I just needed to tell you that resistance is futile."

"What do you mean?" he snapped. "Are you playing alien now?!?"

"No," the voice from the Megaphone Rock replied icily. "I'm just saying that she's not easy to crack. Unless you just want to make your temper worse, back away from the girl and run back to your room, okay?

"Do you know her? Is she another one of your… Legendary buddies?"

"Hmm…" Giratina mused. "Um, no, I don't think she's considered a Legendary. Sorry, kiddo. But I do know what she's like and how she acts – I'm the Goddess of Never-Turn-Back, remember, I see everything – and you're not going to make her tell you anything."

"So how do I make her tell me her name?" demanded Casey.

"You know, that's a good question," she mused. "I'll need to get back to you on that." There was a short noise that sounded like static, and then the connection fizzled out. Casey was left to yell briefly at the Megaphone Rock before returning the conversation to the little girl, who was still sitting there. The mask was staring at him and she had a confused frown on her face. It took a moment for him to realize what that meant.

"Why are you talking to your necklace?" asked the girl.

"Bandanna," Casey said, gritting his teeth. "And I was talking to someone."

"How? Magic?"

"I don't know. Probably is some sort of stupid magic that woman cooks up." Casey snorted, shaking his head. "I'll never understand her. But seriously… why won't you tell me your name? You only need to give me a first name, if that's what you're worried about."

Amarachi shook her head. "No," she replied.

"No what?"

"I'm not worried about you hurting me by knowing my name. I can stop you if you do."

"So will you tell me your name now?" asked Casey, who had passed the 'anger' stage and was now sinking into weariness from this bantering with a six-year-old. "I swear – I just want to know who you are. Then I'll leave you alone and you can leave me alone and this will never come up again, okay?"

"But you don't need to know who I am," she said.

"Well, no, I don't…" muttered the teenager, looking to the right at a swarm of Oddish rampaging around in the night. "But I do want to know who you are."

"Why?"

"Because your parents must be worried sick. If you spent all day stalking me, then…"

"My parents are fine," she huffed. "They can see me right now. They're right over there." And she pointed upwards to the clear sky. Casey's eyes followed her, and his mouth opened slightly.

"You don't mean…" he spluttered.

"No, not like that." She crossed her arms. "Not like that. They're okay. But they're watching me from up there, and they know I can take care of myself."

There was a silence. And then…

"How old are you, kid?"

She looked up at him as her frown and raised eyebrows (visible above the mask) suggested the girl was startled. "Huh?"

"If you won't tell me your name, I just want to know how old you are. Surely you can tell me that."

"You wouldn't believe me." She crossed her arms.

"I've probably heard stranger than whatever you're going to tell me…" he sighed.

"Oh really? Like what?"

Casey frowned thoughtfully and looked the little girl up and down. He was pondering something with the potential to be extremely dangerous or embarrassing. Casey did not particularly enjoy being embarrassed or in danger, and it was for this reason he employed a very elaborate scheme to see if the girl was worthy of being in on it. "Well…" he sighed. "Hey. Are you good with secrets? Keeping them?"

"Oh yeah," she replied with a grin.

"You mean it?"

"Yep!"

Casey glanced downward at the Megaphone Rock and coughed into it softly. A grunt of acceptance echoed back out to him. Having obtained permission from the only person (or, indeed, Pokémon) that would have a true answer, he walked a few paces forward and plopped down on a bench. "Did you know I'm a Trainer? Come on, sit down."

She plodded over next to him and sat down on the bench, making sure to get her cape out from under her before she did so. "You were traveling with people and Pokémon, so I thought you were."

"Good. You're pretty observant. But…" He gave a short burst of laughter. "Wow. Truth be told, you're the first person I'm telling this stuff to, and you're a young girl who I barely even know. Hard to imagine, especially for me…"

"How come?" asked Amarachi, sitting cross-legged on the bench and letting her mask stare up at Casey with her mouth twisted into a rather uncomfortable-looking upside-down V. "Tell me, okay? I have time!"

Casey glanced upward at the moon. It was almost directly overhead. "Must be about… eleven PM right now," he sighed. "Okay, fine. So I was born in a region called Calda – do you know where that is? It's an island way off on the other side of the world, and some time ago the regional government had a big idea. Now, keep in mind that I don't understand a lot about this since I never really learned much about it, so I can't answer your questions if you have any. Since it's so isolated from other landmasses, and there haven't been many living cargo-toting ships going to and from it anyway, they figured that they really ought to get all of the Pokémon off of the island, in order to make it more appealing to those who weren't exactly fond of Pokémon."

Amarachi's mouth hung open. "What? How could they… who doesn't like Pokémon?"

Casey sighed heavily. "Well…" He looked only mildly contemplative on the outside, but the various parts of his brain were in an epic battle to decide whether he ought to say the word 'me' or not. Finally, they came to a decision, and he spoke. "I was born and raised there, so for a big part of my life I didn't… well, it's not like I didn't dislike them… but…"

The kid's mouth opened.

"Wait… hey! Note my use of the past tense! Opinion changed!"

He was too late. The girl hopped off the bench, stuck her tongue out at him, and briskly walked away.

Casey sighed melodramatically and stood up, walking back towards the glinting lights of the Pokémon Center. Now, this Pokémon Center's apparent goal was to be in as direct contrast as possible as the rest of Fort Rhion; what parts of it weren't coated in potted plants or some sort of ivy, there was a very homely feel about it, with soft lighting and the perpetual scent of Rotan onion soup lingering around the entire place. However, there was nobody present to enjoy this true spectacle of nature and humanity combined, seeing as the time read about 4:30 AM.

Except, of course, for Casey, who did everything in his power to get through there and into the elevator at the far end of the room as quickly as possible.

He heard a few distinctly musical sounds echoing from one of the other rooms for rent. This confused him considerably; up until now, Casey had honestly thought that he was probably the only one in the city who wakes up any earlier than seven on Saturday. Pondering this, he reached the right door and turned the doorknob very slowly.

As he was soon to find out, everyone who came within a one-mile radius of Casey Blair automatically had their mood turned sour.

It was now about five in the morning, and Casey had tried to sneak into the Pokémon Center room as quietly as possible. Not quietly enough, however, because once he had gone in the tired boy was met with three definitely awake people. None of them looked all too happy, and all of their faces were 'graced' with a bemused glare in his direction. Grant was sitting in an armchair, legs crossed and arms playing with his metal pipe. Caro was leaning on the back of said armchair, arms pressing down upon the chair almost directly above Grant's head. Sheridan was staring with her hands on her hips.

"Care to explain where you've been?" she asked.

"I was on a walk," yawned Casey. "Didn't wanna wake you… good night." And he made a beeline for the door to his bedroom.

Caro took a few steps to the left and blocked the entrance to his companion's solace. "What took you so long, then? Did you go start playing with an Oddish or something?"

"I'll tell you in the morning," he grumbled, slipping past Caro and into the doorway. The door shut and locked (loudly) behind him, which created a silence amongst the rest of the group. There was a soft scratching noise coming from outside outside, as if some Pokémon were having a midnight scuffle. Sheridan's eyes flicked toward the window, but she found nothing unusual.

However, what she found and what actually happened were two very different things.

Because, at that moment, there was a little girl running frantically through the streets of Fort Rhion, dodging the early risers now on their way to… somewhere else. All early risers' eyes turned on her as she passed, due in no small part to the undeniable strangeness about her. They would all admit that yes, sometimes their morning commutes were eventful, but never again would they see a little girl in a heavy pink cloak and carrying a briefcase run down the street.

Later, there would be a very chaotic late morning at Pokémon Center room 4-28. That morning would involve plentiful amounts of yelling, anger, pointing fingers, begging, and the occasional threat of being hit over the head with a heavy metal pipe. Thus accomplished, everyone would sit down at a cute little café in the town square and discuss twice-stolen goods and Gym Badges over coffee and pastries.

"So," said Caro through a mouthful of cookie, "what brilliant plan have you got for this Gym?"

"I don't know," admitted Casey, shrugging and poking inattentively at a piece of pound cake. "I can't make any strategy for battling a person I know nothing about, you know."

"Well then find out more about the Gym Leader and make a plan for him," laughed Sheridan, putting down her coffee. "I think back when I took this challenge the Gym Leader was a young man – a really young man, I mean, like twelve years old – named Stathis. He trained Electric-types, and I'm guessing he came from Slateport or something."

"Slateport?" asked Caro, Casey, and Grant in unison.

"How do you figure that?" tagged on the latter.

"Well, the Pokémon pretty much didn't listen to his commands, and the only other place where they do that in a respected battling ring is the Battle Tent in Slateport City."

"Didn't listen to his commands?" asked Casey doubtfully. "How on Earth did he get to be a Gym Leader with disgraceful Pokémon?"

"Oh, they're not disgraceful," said Sheridan with a smug little grin. "As a matter of fact, they seemed to like him very much." She was hiding something, and made no effort to hide that fact.

"Well, if they don't listen to him or whatever it makes it easier for you to win, right, Case?" said Caro, standing up dramatically and swallowing the last of his cookie. "Let's get moving! Daylight's burning, right?"

"Have you ever seen him get that excited before?" asked Grant in an undertone. "Or call you 'Case'?"

Casey shook his head.

The next two chapters before I disappear on a short trip over the edge of the world!

Well, at least it's not completely awkward, which suggests I'm going on tangents at least somewhat well. |D However, I can't agree with that last bit: I don't actually 'go' for writing that way - it's just the way I write!

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Far enough. XD I will note that with the next two chapters I read today did not have this awkwardness problem (but a lack of Giratina so that may explain part of it).

Actually, the reason Casey was walking it out on his own was because I had a little problem with transportation scenes in Metal Coat. Remember? Going everywhere with the help of a Pokémon (flying on its back, being teleported, whatever) is certainly an accurate portrayal of the series, but it sure is boring. And besides, I needed to get that scene in there - otherwise, Sheridan would never have seen him, and they would never have noticed each other in Rhoter, and so on and so forth.

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Hmm, maybe some more stating of that fact in the story subtly would be something to consider then, to clear it up.

So true. I do have a mysterious tendency to screw up on whatever attempts at description I make. There's no other way I know how to do it, unfortunately! However, just so this post has a purpose...

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Hmm. Well, consider trying to spread out details like the ones you tend to give rather than give an immediate paragraph detailing it (which as I said is a decent way to do it anyway, but less so if it's the only way you choose to do it in). Such as this part from the next chapter:

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.

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(btw makes is out of place there given the rest of it - was, felt, etc - made fits better IMO). A good bunch of this could be spread between stuff like actions of her doing something or the such so it's not just description, but description with something happening at the same time. As a quick + rough example, she has black hair tha looks nearly navy blue in the light - you could introduce his fact by having her run her hand through her black hair which...(etc). Rather than telling us that she had a straightforward attitude as well you could have someone mention it in dialogue ("She's rather straightforward, isn't she?" remarked Mr X.) or shoe it to us, which you already do with a good characterisation of her in the chapter anyway. That way you can just remove parts of the-paragraph-of-description and weave it more into the story.

'Even at the first question it's difficult for me,' he thought.

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I feel it might sound better as 'Even the first question is difficult for me'.

Caro didn't notice the movement at first, and was in deep conversation with and what seemed to be his Raichu.

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'and' doesn't seem to be necessary there.

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.

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Might sound better if you replace the ellipse with 'and'? (...about the Holon League and whatever he was...)

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

Oh, the JAWS. Man, I got a kick out of that when I made it up a couple years ago... still do, actually.

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I also got a kick out of it. XD Humour like this really 'makes the fic' I feel - it's good fun. XD

Casey grimaced. Who knew that merely walking through a forest path could irritate Pokémon to such an extent? He certainly didn't. It hadn't happened when he was walking through some of the other foliage-lined paths to and from Holon. However, as soon as he and Caro had stepped onto the path (Casey fiddling with a machine in his hands) a couple of black Pokémon felt the need to greet them in a rather loud and unpleasant manner.

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And takes on the Pokmon game mechanics and all do amuse as well (along with the turn-based jab later on XD).

It howled and cawed until it couldn't remain airborne any longer, and it fell through the ground.

Yes, through the ground.

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O_o

But after catching a glance from Caro (which somehow managed to convey the messages 'Don't you dare go in there, you'll get yourself really hurt' and 'Don't wimp out now' at the same time) he kept his feet firmly where they stood and watched with relief Rotom springing up again.

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It reads a bit awkwardly, the last part I feel (maybe with suddenly ending with the word 'springing' as opposed to managed and kept and stood before it?)... unless you were to move 'with relief' to the end of the sentence -then it sounds right magically to me. XD

"A Pokéball," he said matter-of-factly. "P-O-K-accent-E-Ball.

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Points for quoting the rival in Platinum. =D

These two chapters amused and entertained again and as I mentioend had less of the tangents and s a reult was easier for me to follow throughout with the minor details - nothing confused me here. The becomeing--legal-trainer part was al interesting to read, and I like the scene overall set up in the lab, and the jobs at the games are win. I shall return...later!

Might sound better if you replace the ellipse with 'and'? (...about the Holon League and whatever he was...)

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The term he was looking for was 'Holon League Challenge', and since he couldn't quite remember the last word it came out as 'Holon League... Whatever'.

Points for quoting the rival in Platinum. =D

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Doubly so since in personality, Rival-Boy was one of the models for Caro. =D


"You know," said Casey bitterly, "finding this place would be a lot easier of we knew where it was."

"I told you," replied Sheridan. "The building has been vacated since I last entered – the Gym must be somewhere else in the city now. I can't help you on that count. We'll have to ask someone in the street where it went." She looked around, apparently searching for someone who looked enough like a Trainer or an in-the-know native to point them in the appropriate direction.

Instead of finding a useful source of information, though, her eyes lit up almost immediately and she began to walk. The other three, still confused about just what she was going towards, looked around until they found Sheridan's assumed destination. It didn't look good for their goal of dealing with Stathis by the end of the day.

"That is not the Gym," said Grant.

"No, doesn't look like it…" Casey remarked in utter confusion, listening to the unmistakable squealing of a woman who has just found something absolutely wonderful at a bargain price.

"Did she catch sight of some sort of Shiny?" wondered Caro. "Hey, Sheridan, what're you doing?" Not bothering to discuss Sheridan's (or his own) odd behavior with the others, Caro set off at a brisk walk, slipping past members of the current throng in order to find out what Sheridan was actually squealing about. Once he had gotten within arm's reach of her he tapped her on the shoulder softly. This was considerably easier than it had been; Sheridan had stopped walking and had joined an especially large crowd around some sort of caged Pokémon.

Casey and Grant watched in awe as Sheridan swiveled around and immediately began gushing about something. They couldn't hear what she was saying over the muttering of the rest of the crowd, but Caro had put his hands on his hips and was now shaking his head in disbelief.

Sheridan then proceeded to… oh dear.

"I think she's… pleading." Grant turned to Casey worriedly.

"This won't end well, will it?"

"Probably not."

The two descended into conversation.

Meanwhile, amidst the mass of people and after a lengthy discussion of the group's funding, Sheridan cuddled an Ultra Ball affectionately and practically pranced over to the other side of the corridor of Pokémon stands. Caro followed behind, not wanting to say anything for fear of his head being bitten off. After all business there had been taken care of, Sheridan actually did prance back over to the other two. Caro remained in his spot of walking behind Sheridan, separated a few feet so as not to give off the impression that he actually knew this crazy woman.

"Casey!" she chirped as soon as he was in earshot. "I've got some thiiiiings~!"

"Yeah," he replied. "I can… I can see that, Sheridan. What have you got?"

"Oh, just a few things." Sheridan was beaming from ear to ear. "Only two. One for you, and one I'll show you all later!" She held out two Pokéballs, an Ultra Ball and a Great Ball, and handed the latter to Casey. "Consider it a… late expression of gratitude for inviting me on your quest, okay?"

"Um, sure." All of the other members of the Groupie Galaxy were feeling nervous and embarrassed to varying degrees, ranging from Rotom's curiosity to find out what's wrong with Sheridan to the flush of red now spreading across Casey's face. "So… what's in it?"

"Well, considering it's in a Pokéball, I think it might be a Pokémon. Why don't you just release the thing and find out?" Sheridan placed the Ultra Ball in her jacket pocket and smiled.

"Release it!" said Caro enthusiastically. "Yeah! When someone gives you a Pokémon, you ought to use it! …Usually," he added on, recalling the Taillow and Sentret that Casey had received at the beginning of his adventure.

"We should go somewhere less crowded," said Casey. "The Pokémon might freak out if there are too many people around, right?"

"That's true too," said Caro. "Should we go to some sort of park? It probably won't be so busy again for a few hours. Come on!" And without another word he swiveled on his heel (once again, Casey noticed, with perfect balance) and began walking back towards the red-roofed building. It was now Caro's turn to have someone trail around in his wake.

Grant and Casey shared a confused glance before Sheridan called for them to hurry up.

Casey shrugged at the Great Ball and set off at a run with the last remaining members of the Groupie Galaxy – Rotom and Grant – in hot pursuit. They both weaved through the complaining crowd, squirming into the smallest holes they could find in order to catch up to Sheridan and Caro. And although the concept wasn't on Casey's mind at the time, what with the whole plowing through a crowd of people thing, there was a small part of him that did want to know what this new Pokémon was going to be. And though he didn't linger upon (or indeed consider) the matter, he honestly wanted to see a Pokémon.

For the first time in Casey's life, he wanted to see a Pokémon. And had Casey somehow been reading this and have realized that he honestly did want to see a Pokémon, he would have shrugged it off, once again for the first time.

There was definitely a shifting of position in Casey Blair's brain. Watching him through the magical computer screen on the Dea Procol Machina, I realized this, and a satisfied grin spread across my face. Goodness knows why he was sent on this prophetic quest of peril and not, say, some aspiring young man in Kanto, but there was no doubt in the world that it was doing the boy some good.

And when a good queen's subjects are happy, she's happy, too.



Whoever came up with the concept of Trainer-and-Pokémon bonding clearly had never met the newest addition to Casey's team.

It had been agreed upon soon after the small brown Pokémon was released into the open that it had the cutest little scowl ever, but unfortunately that was all Larvitar had going for it. Oh, sure, at first he looked acceptable (if a little rowdy) – no taller than two feet, with about a fourth of that height courtesy of the large spike that stuck up from his head, the new arrival was a small green dinosaur with a tail like a pinecone and two hollow holes on either side of its torso. There was a red diamond-shaped pattern on his stomach, in between the holes (which were now beginning to trickle sand out onto the ground).

"Imported directly from Sinnoh," said Sheridan with obvious pride in her voice.

"Hmm," said Casey, fishing out his JAWS from the pack slung over his shoulder. "Let's see what you do."

"Larvitar, the Rock Skin Pokémon," said the JAWS flatly, while Casey blinked. He hadn't realized that the thing actually talked. "They feed on soil, and must eat their way out of nests underground. After eating, they usually fall asleep." Information about this particular Larvitar flashed on the JAWS' screen.

Larvitar coughed and stared up at Casey with small, beady eyes. Before the boy could react, Rotom had zoomed out of Sheridan's arms and right up into Larvitar's face, grinning. His mouth was open, ready to be filled with hyperactive greetings.

Instead, it was filled with Larvitar's fist.

"Mmph!" yelled Rotom, backing away at once and cowering against his owner's chest. In the same moment Larvitar scowled at his hand, which was now covered with glowing blue plasma, and wiped it off on the grass. Casey closed his arms around the small Ghost-type and fixed a disapproving stare at Larvitar.

"That," he said firmly, "was uncalled for."

Larvitar rolled his eyes.

Casey's glowering slid to Sheridan, whose pleased expression had quickly deteriorated to one of heavy consideration.

Larvitar crossed his stubby arms, now completely free of Rotom's glowing gunk, and began to speak. "Lar. Larvitar, tar, lar-vi-lar-tarrrrr. Lar, lar, lar-vi-tar!" The small Pokémon continued to ramble – his body movements made it quite apparent that he was trying to lay out ground rules for how he was to be treated and exactly what sort of pain was going to ensue of they weren't followed.

Caro's expression got steadily more irritated as Larvitar continued.

Larvitar didn't seem to notice, but instead went right ahead with his demands until Caro silently excused himself from the group to slam his head against a tree. Brushing the debris out of his hair as he returned, Caro said flatly, "Casey, do you intend to keep this Pokémon safe and comfortable at all times?"

"Yeah."

"And do you intend to feed it twice a day?"

"Don't Pokémon not need feeding while they're in their Pokéballs?"

"Do you also intend to keep Larvitar out of his Pokéball so that he can truly see the rest of the world in full, living color? And to make sure that whenever he is too tired to walk, he will be carried? And see to it that he will not be used more than your other Pokémon just because he's already out? And ensure that he will be remembered at all times, and never, ever, EVER deposited into the PC?"

There was an extremely uncomfortable silence that ensued.

Caro's arms were crossed, and Casey realized with some concern that this was the most bemused facial expression that he had ever seen his friend and semi-mentor pull. "You might want to talk it over with him on that." Caro ignored Larvitar's irritated protests.

The distinct lack of noise didn't just surround the Groupie Galaxy – it seemed like the entire park had stopped making noise, people and Pokémon alike. (Well, they were still making noise, but everyone's brains were too busy trying to analyze what had just gone down to notice.) And then Caro said, "Just thought you'd need to know if you wanted to keep him. And since Larvitar here doesn't seem to realize that you've got no stinking idea what he's trying to say, I took it upon myself to translate."

Larvitar looked up at him with a shocked and angry expression. "Lar-lar?!?"

"How did I do that?" he replied, looking downwards. "Oh, you know. I've done it all my life, the talking to Pokémon thing. Remember when I said that growing up I was around Pokémon literally all the time?" He looked back up at Casey. "I meant it."

Grant's head was the first one to crack under the pressure. "Wait. Wait… so you can talk to them?"

"Of course I can talk to them," Caro replied with a shrug. "And since nobody else could and I didn't think Casey was going to oblige to Larvitar's commands without him knowing what he was doing, I was just trying to save us from any further pain – physical pain, I might add, Larvitar went into detail on that – down the road."

"You, sir," said Sheridan, "have some explaining to do."

"Not now," replied Caro. "Right now we need to get this Larvitar situated with our ground rules, am I right?"

"No," said Casey. "You've gotta explain first."

"What's more important – making sure your Pokémon doesn't beat you up or playing Let's Learn About Caro?" he asked. "I'll get to that part later on, I promise. But right now we need to get some training done, and the only place to do that is in the plentiful amount of forest right over there." Caro pointed to a large wooden arch, under which seemed to be a path into the forest. "There's about a million entrances and exits to Holon Forest, and the different areas are blocked off. Good place to spend some time training if you ask me."

"So what about Stathis?" asked Sheridan.

"He's got a Rotom, a Poliwag, and a foul-mouthed Honchkrow," said Caro flatly. "The Gym will be crawling with Electric-types, won't it? He'll get squashed."

"You have a point…" muttered Grant. "…but why are you being so testy about it?"

Caro pointed to Larvitar, who seemed to have recently found a deep hatred for the boy and was now snarling ferociously at him.

"Oh," said Grant. "I see."

Larvitar objected. Loudly.

"You were the one who started pushing things on us!" Caro protested back.

"Larvi-vi-tar! Tarlarlar!"

"Wh—what do you mean, I started it by buying you? I didn't do it!"

"Lar lar," said Larvitar firmly, crossing is stubby arms.

"What did you say?" Caro hissed back.

Indeed, Larvitar's attitude and mere presence did seem to make Caro feel a lot worse. Casey wisely decided to simply recall the little thing before a scuffle broke out and somebody lost an eye.

"Your point has been made," he said to Caro, returning Larvitar's Pokéball to his backpack. "But you're gonna have to deal with him later once we get into the forest and wild Pokémon start popping up. Let's go." Sheridan, upon recognizing the highly unpleasant edge to his voice, nodded silently and followed. Caro snorted in contempt and started walking, until Grant was left standing alone with The Pipe slung over his shoulder.

"What's with you all today?" he wondered out loud.



The Pokémon count, contrary to the Groupie Galaxy's popular belief, had been remarkably low. Sure, there had been plenty of Ratattas and Weedles squirming around (and even the odd Slakoth), but after they passed a certain point all of the Pokémon activity just… stopped. The wildlife all suddenly ceased to exist. Everything went silent. This unsettled the group immensely…

"Where did the Pokémon go?" wondered Sheridan, looking around at the suspicious lack of fauna.

"Beats me," replied Caro with his hands in his pockets. "But if it keeps that thing in its Pokéball they can stay where they are."

Casey rolled his eyes. "Can't you just get along?"

"No." Caro looked away. "But… the sky is getting dark. Are we just going to camp out in the dark or what?"

"If we don't get out, we'll work on that," said Casey. "Besides, I'm sure we can find some sort of shelter somewhere in this forest… even if it's just a big tree."

"Or a cave," remarked Sheridan with a shrug.

"Or a spontaneously-abandoned campsite," suggested Caro.

"Or a creepy, dark house," piped up Grant.

"Yeah, good luck with that," snorted Sheridan with her hands on her hips. "Where did you come up with something like that?"

"From up there." Grant pointed with one gloved finger through the trees and to a few window-shaped, faint pinpricks of light. On the spot above them, smoke from a fire chimney billowed up into the moonlit night.

"Point taken," said Sheridan, amazed.

Casey began walking towards the house, in a very different direction than they had been moving previously. When Sheridan raised her voice to object, he turned back around with eyebrows raised.

"It's worth a shot, right?" asked Casey. "I mean, whoever lives in the middle of the forest must be used to Trainers losing their bearings and running to their house for a place to sleep the night… just like us." He turned to face the others – their expressions didn't show any dislike towards the idea, but nobody was particularly happy about it either. "Come on, you guys. I'm sure it happens to the owner all the time."

"Well, yeah, but would he take four people?" wondered Grant, swinging his unarmed hand in an arc to reference the quartet.

"Maybe," Casey replied over his shoulder. "But at least we can say that we tried… besides, who's the one heading the quest here?"

"You are," came the grumbled (but unanimous) reply.



Caro banged on a heavy wooden door.

"Coming!" yowled a distinctly female voice from inside, seemingly ignoring the cacophony of Pokémon trying to tell her that someone was on the front steps (but had done so a little too late). A few minutes later, the door creaked open to reveal a woman with long, dark hair that fell into clumps near the tips.

"Can I help you?" she asked, pulling the waist strings on her bathrobe.

"Sorry to bother you so late," said Casey, "but we got sort of lost in the forest and…"

"Oh, you all are travelling Trainers? Don't worry; living here I've heard the story plenty of times before. Come on in, and do your best not to tread on too many tail feathers." She chuckled to herself as the door swung open completely to let the group in.

She wasn't kidding about the tail feathers. Lurking in the rafters was an unnaturally high number of Murkrows, red eyes glinting in the light given off from bare-bulb lamps. These same lamps illuminated the old wooden walls and floor – despite their obvious age and the amount of Pokémon who seemed to inhabit the house, they seemed to be in good condition. "I'm sorry about the dinginess of the place," the woman continued. "I don't go for elaborate stuff… and besides, the other residents up there would have it ripped up in an instant." She pointed upwards.

Casey was the first one to speak. "Thank you," he said politely, looking around.

"No problem, no problem. The guest rooms are up the stairs and all along the right hallway; let me get into some proper clothing before I do anything else. It's nearly supper." Nobody felt like reminding her that it was about seven PM.

There was a general mumbling in the direction of 'yes' as the foursome scaled the staircase across the room. There was, indeed, a long hallway at the top, with doors all along both sides. Caro dove for the nearest available room on the right. Sheridan watched him sprint with great amusement before entering the next bedroom, letting Grant and Casey occupy the last two.

They weren't, noticed Casey, very elaborately decorated – neat, yes, but not heavily furnished. There was just a bed, a set of drawers, and a table lamp on a nightstand to designate the windowed room as anything more than unused storage space. Casey placed his three Pokéballs on the table and turned to Rotom, who had settled himself by snuggling on the bed's comforter.

"Don't destroy anything," he warned.

Casey left the room to the high-pitched affirmative of Rotom.

The table, as everyone noticed at the same time, was big.

It must have seated at least eight, despite the fact that there were only five people present to eat. The house's owner had apparently failed to realize this, as she ushered everyone in and let them chose a seat. Shortly afterward she slipped into the kitchen via a rather unnoticeable door, called out to tell them that she'd only be a minute, and then returned from the same unnoticeable door carrying a large plate and ceramic bowl. One was filled with mashed potatoes, the other strips of meat. Grabbing five plates and the appropriate cutlery from a drawer in the dining room, she placed them out on the table with an abundance of clattering and finally sat down.

She smiled as her eyes came to Caro, who was already busy shoveling food onto his plate.

"So," she said, looking around at the group. "I'm Amelia. Tell me your names, won't you?" Amelia had put on simple clothing – a gray shirt and some blue jeans.

Caro went first (as usual) and introduced himself, before returning to filling his plate. Sheridan snickered and went next, and the others followed in turn. Amelia nodded and welcomed them all, before turning to the subject she suspected would be on everyone's minds: the Murkrows.

"Don't mind the Flying-types, guys," she said, nodding to one as it zoomed down onto the table next to her and stared at the new arrivals. "As you can see, Murkrows and Honchkrows are personally my favorite Pokémon…"

"Ah, I should've let Honchkrow out earlier," remarked Casey, observing the staircase in the next room from his chair. "He'd certainly have lots to do."

Amelia's face brightened. "Oh, you've got a Honchkrow? Wonderful! Actually, come to think of it, you guys can let all of your Pokémon out after dinner. The flock here will give them a tour of the house." She nodded to the black-feathered birds lurking in the rafters. "Like I said before, don't mind 'em; I guess you could call me a crazy bird lady of sorts. Living in the forest like this I find a lot of them around, most of whom had fainted but for some mysterious reason failed to sink into the ground."

"So you take them in?" asked Caro.

"Yes I do, and a few decide to stay with me… well, alright. More than a few." She looked around. "So how have you been, Caro?"

The small conversation screeched to a halt.

"Uh… do you know her?" asked Grant confusedly. "You never mentioned…"

"No, I don't think I do," said Caro, tapping one finger on the side of his head and knitting his eyebrows. "Sorry. Where do I know you from?"

"Well," said Amelia with a grin. "You'd forgotten? Only after this long? That's quite something, Caro… though I do suppose you knew me a little differently than this. Hold on." She got up, motioned for Caro to stay, and scampered out of the room. A few seconds later she swooped back in, now decked out in a tattered black overcoat and Murkrow-crest hat. "Ringing any bells?"

Caro didn't respond. His jaw was too busy trying to close itself.

"So you do know her," remarked Sheridan dryly, crossing her legs. "From where, might I ask?"

"Hmm…" Amelia took off the coat and hat and stowed them on a nearby coatrack before returning to her seat. "Really? He didn't tell you about the tour through Sinnoh yet? I'm surprised; you always seemed like the sort of kid to go boasting about things."

"Well, uh, not really," spluttered Caro. "I didn't tell them. Yet. Well, I mean, I was going to… eventually. But, you know… with the whole…"

"I see, I see," said Amelia sadly, nodding her head. "Didn't want to mention him too soon, right?"

"I didn't mean to insult you or anything," said Caro quickly.

"Ah, no, no offense taken. It's understandable."

The conversation had now become completely lopsided, and those not in on what they were talking about were now utterly and visibly lost. Amelia noticed the confused expressions on their faces, and seemed to come to her own senses about the whole thing. "Oops! Hey, Caro, we'd better fill them in before we continue the discussion any further, right?"

"Oh," he said, considerably less jubilant all of a sudden. "Right. Um… well… like she said, I went traveling a couple years ago. In Sinnoh, with a couple of friends of mine I knew from my old home. Remember I told you about that, Casey? Where I was surrounded by Pokémon literally all the time? I meant it. There were seriously no humans in Treasure Town. Not even me. 'Cause… back in the day, I was a Pikachu. Born and raised."

A general cacophony of interruptions rose up at this point.

"Hey, whoa, cool down," he continued. "I'll get to that, I mean it. So anyway, yeah, I was a Pikachu. And my best friend Kris, she was a Meowth – or a Persian, depending on what time period you're talking here – and my other best friend Helio… he was a Magnemite or Magneton, same deal as with Kris. So anyway, we three were in an Exploration Team – that's a group of Pokémon who not only go rescue other Pokémon but also explore these ever-changing Mystery Dungeons too – and at the time we were on this mission to go explore a strange Dungeon near Treasure Town, where our base was.

"So when we got there, we were running around inside the dungeon and eventually, we found a funny shining rock that sucked up light. Helio could identify it for whatever reason; he called it the 'Dementia Key' or something. Kris and I both went to touch it, but then there was this big flash of light and… well, a lot of stuff happened after that, but there were definitely no Badges involved. We were taken to the human-Pokémon world – that's this one – and we pretty much spent the next few weeks trying not to get ourselves killed by a lunatic Legendary named Mesprit."

There was a squeal that was far too fangirlish for comfort that echoed from Caro's right. "You… saw… a Mesprit?" gasped Sheridan, who had stood up with wide eyes. "Really? D-did you talk to it? Was it nice?"

"He just said that this 'Mesprit' was nuts," said Casey flatly.

"Oh," she responded. "Right." She sat down and cleared her throat. "Well… go on, then, I guess… but there's one thing I don't quite get."

"What's that?" asked Caro.

"Why did… why did Mesprit want you dead?"

Caro averted his eyes. He clearly wanted to slip over this subject as smoothly as possible while giving away the least amount of information – and he had failed. Miserably. "Well, um, you see…" he muttered trying to find a way to put it that wouldn't make them all scoot their chairs away from him very, very fast. "It was mostly because of Helio… See, he had been born in the human-Pokémon world, as a human and stuff, but then he sort of got sent to the Pokémon-only world for… um… something…"

"What?" was the resounding echo from four other mouths. Amelia in particular was staring at Caro with much intensity, leaning forward in her seat. She had apparently not learned this part.

"For… well… something. He was sent there by… y'know… Arceus. Because he did some… you know… bad things…"

"Just tell us the man's name," said Grant.

Caro looked around. "Okay. But you guys… you've got to promise not to hold this against me – or him – in the future, okay? Because he's sorry. I know he is."

"We won't, we won't," said Sheridan. "What's his name?"

Amelia was now scowling. She did, apparently, know this part.

Caro sighed and muttered one word to everyone else, who had leaned in to hear him better after he ducked his head…

All it took was one word.

One word and they were all shaken up, sitting stock-still in their seats, frantically trying to piece together what he had just said within their brain. Three brains – those of the people who didn't already know what was going on – sorted their clues out furiously, and when three people tried to think very hard at the same time… it was not a pretty picture.

He clearly thought pretty highly of the man, but… but… him?

Was that… was that even possible?

The only one who didn't seem to feel the full meaning of this – indeed, even Amelia had sniffled and turned away – was Casey. His face turned to one of blank confusion. "I'm sorry…" he said shakily, watching as everyone's eyes turned on him. "I'm sorry if I'm missing the significance here…

…But who cares if Caro traveled with a man named Cyrus?"



Any thoughts that had been building up in the minds of Sheridan o'Reilly, Grant Sternberg, Caro (who didn't have a surname for obvious reasons), and Amelia "Yami" Wolfe simply fell away in that moment. Every single one fell out into the even-more awkward silence present in the room. Even the Murkrows had halted their game time, in order to watch in confusion. Why, even the Pokémon knew about him – well, living with Amelia they had to – and even their thoughts blanked at that moment and joined the silence. And then all that vacant brain space was filled at the same time, with only one unanimous thought: 'He seriously doesn't know?'

"Casey," said Sheridan slowly, "are you perhaps somehow suggesting that you seriously can't attach any significance to the name Cyrus Wolfe?"

"No, I really can't," said Casey, suddenly feeling like he had done something very, very wrong. "What… what did he do?"

This brought another wave of uncomfortable silence over the group, while Casey's unanswered question lingered above them. It was amazing how just one person not understanding a problem could make it so much more painful for everyone else.

Everyone was hoping that someone else could explain to Casey just what he had somehow missed. None of them were any the wiser of the true reason: his upbringing's touchiness on the matters of Pokémon and the lunatics who somehow got it in their heads that they could control them. However, the one who stepped up to fill the silence was quite possibly the next best thing aside from Cyrus himself.

That 'next best thing' was his sister, Amelia.

"Well…" she stuttered. "Casey, Cyrus did something terrible. It was perhaps thirteen years ago, when he was the driving force behind a criminal behemoth known as 'Team Galactic'. After a few years of making his team's presence known, Cyrus went ahead and made his own presence known – for perhaps the first time in his life, I might add. He went up to the top of Mt. Coronet in Sinnoh and made some sort of foolhardy attempt to reset the universe."

There was no response, so she continued.

"Yes… really. Using the combined power of the guardians of two basic elements of a universe – Time and Space – he tried to bring the universe to a new beginning, deleting almost everything and everyone who ever existed. His intention was to bring it to a complete standstill, and somehow claim the throne of nothing and rule over… nothing. He summoned Dialga and Palkia, the guardians I spoke of, in order to bring the universe to its roots. He was stopped, primarily, by three beings – though there was an undocumented mention of a young girl named Dawn Driftwood – who were guardians of a different sort. They were guardians of the three basic components of the human mind. Knowledge was watched over by Uxie. Willpower was watched over by Azelf. And Emotion was watched over by…" Her gray eyes flickered through the web of tears to Caro. "…Mesprit."

"But that was…" Casey began.

"Right, the psycho Legendary," said Caro shakily, looking in even worse condition than Amelia. "Look… guys, I really don't want to talk about this…" He turned away from everyone else, making a valiant attempt to make them think that drops of water weren't threatening to stream down his face. "…I'm… I'm going to go to bed. See you."

He got up stiffly and ran out of the room.



The rest of the night moved by in a haze – and it had nothing to do with the Pokémon. Everyone in the house either drifted around vacantly or locked themselves up in their room, and eventually all humans present slipped into their rooms.

Pinsir, who took the trouble of going around and spying on people in the middle of the night, lost his nerve and stopped halfway through. This primarily happened after he nearly received a nasty Thundershock courtesy of Caro's Raichu, who seemed to be standing guard over his Trainer's slumbering body. After this he merely scuttled out and back to his owner's room, where he was surprised to find Larvitar and Kaeo staring at Grant curiously.

<Uh…> said Pinsir.

Larvitar turned his head quickly, but returned it to the original position. <Oh,> he said. <Just you.>

<Yeah, 'just' me,> said Pinsir, walking in the room. <So what are you guys doing staring at the Boss like that?>

<'Boss'?> snorted Larvitar. <Why're you calling him that?>

<I don't know,> said Pinsir, moving to join them. <I guess I've always been used to calling people who own me 'Boss'. But seriously, what are you doing?>

<Kaeo over here says that he felt a really strange vibe comin' off of your boss,> said Larvitar, pointing in the proper direction in case Pinsir didn't quite know who Kaeo was. (He did, of course, but Larvitar evidently failed to realize that.) <So he went and sneaked in here to try and find out what was going on, and I found him. So now we're just trying to sort it out together, you know?>

<Oh,> said Pinsir. <Well… Kaeo, what do you think is wrong with him?>

<Nothing's wrong with him, technically,> said Kaeo with a shrug, <and I can't pinpoint anything right now because it was faint, but in his mind readings I think I sensed a little bit of… hostility. Grant here is usually a good-tempered guy, right?>

<Usually,> said Pinsir.

<Right. So his mind readings ought to be pretty calm as well. And mostly they were. But I did feel a little bit of turmoil somewhere in there, hidden among the totally normal readings. Anger, frustration, that sort of thing. But the thing is it didn't even feel like his – more like someone else's.>

<Are you sure it was coming from him?> asked Pinsir, now considerably worried about the well-being of his Trainer.

<Definitely,> said Kaeo, crossing his arms. <It was definitely coming from him. But at the same time it felt alien, like it was someone else entirely…>

<These 'mind readings'…> said Pinsir, looking at Kaeo curiously. <Do they change with someone's personality, or are they set in stone from the moment of their birth?>

<They can change as the person does, but it would need to be a very drastic change in outlook for the mind-readings to change as well. For example, if someone had been using a certain new personality that they weren't like naturally, their mind waves would remain in the configuration of the old personality unless they'd been using it constantly for a certain period of time. However, if they just mature with age, the mind waves stay the same.> Kaeo looked away from Grant and focused on the brown Bug-type. <Why do you ask?>

Pinsir waved his arm nonchalantly. <No particular reason.>

Even Larvitar could see that he was lying, and the knowing smile on Kaeo's face suggested that the Stag Beetle Pokémon had more of a reason than that. But the purple Drowzee nudged Larvitar with his arm and shook his head at the small Pokémon, who doubtless wanted to inquire further.

Larvitar pouted, but obeyed.

The atmosphere among the Groupie Galaxy had improved significantly from the previous night, but there was still a strange silence hovering over them, only making itself known when conversation seemed to die down and making those times that much worse. They had left Amelia Wolfe's hospitality earlier that morning.

"Um, Casey…" said Grant, looking around.

"Hm?" he replied (somewhat absently).

"You are looking for Pokémon to train on, right?"

Casey paused for a moment. "Yeah, I suppose I am."

"Well, it doesn't look like there are many around here. Do you think we should go back to Rhion and try a different forest entrance?"

"No," he replied. "I think we're okay here. It's morning; a lot of the Pokémon are just waking up or just going to bed, right? If we wait a couple hours, the forest should be swarming with Pokémon as usual."

"Right." Grant didn't sound particularly convinced, for he pulled the Pipe down from its previous position of slung over his shoulder and instead opted to carry it in his hand like a club.

"Larvitar, keep looking for any early risers, okay?" Casey took out Larvitar's Pokéball and released the Ground-type again. He initially did not look too pleased to be out in the open (Casey had woken him up, the little Ratatta), but upon hearing that they were in a forest with potential victims to be had, all hard feelings were forgotten.

…Well, except for the ones directed towards Caro.

Sheridan, noticing the arrival of Larvitar, shot a glance in Caro's direction lest she need to block any more physical assaults. Fortunately, though, the boy had simply tried to ignore Larvitar and kept his eyes fixed on the forest ahead. Sheridan wanted to say something, she really did, but comforting those in a bad mood was definitely not her strong suit.

Casey, sensing the rather unpleasant silence once again, turned back Larvitar with an inquisitive expression on his face.

"So are you ready to do some training?" he asked the Pokémon.

Larvitar nodded with a smirk and a glint in his eye. Training induced getting stronger, and Larvitar was always one for getting stronger.

'If I get stronger,' thought the Pokémon for the sixth time since he came under the ownership of Casey, 'then maybe I can evolve into something actually good. And when I evolve into something actually good I can ditch this kid and…' The Larvitar was unaware that he was now grinning maniacally, and only the calling of his Trainer returned him to something resembling a calm state.

"Larvitar!"

The Pokémon looked up at Casey, blinking innocently.

"Don't daydream," said the redhead, stopping to look around. "This is serious business."

Larvitar saluted his Trainer, cheered even further by the concept of the Casey kid finally growing a spine. <Yeah!>

Both Pokémon and Trainer took a good look around at the surrounding forest, hoping to find some sort of Pokémon to begin their training session on. (In the meantime, Grant, Sheridan, and Caro gawked with unrivaled amazement at the sudden initiative their friend was showing.)

"Ssssssssr."

Everyone in the area straightened up at once. Even Caro popped out of his funk temporarily to look around with a confused expression on his face. "Who just said that?" wondered the boy.

"It sounded like someone snoring," observed Grant helpfully.

"And who would be asleep in the middle of a forest?" asked Sheridan with raised eyebrows. "No, it's probably not someone camping out for the night, unless they're really outdoorsy types. It must be a Pokémon of some kind… but you might be onto something with the snoring thing. Look over there!"

Indeed, there had been a rustling noise from directly in front of them. Out from under the bush squirmed a small brown Pokémon with half-open eyes and sharp claws. It had its stomach to the ground and stared up at the group dopily before giving off a loud yawn.

Larvitar perked up almost immediately afterward. <Opponent!> he shouted. <Yes!>

Caro rolled his eyes and returned to sulking position – hands jammed in his pockets and staring out at everything under a mess of spiky hair that seemed to have lost all power over gravity that it once held. "Your Larvitar's found his next target," he told Casey flatly.

"Right. Thanks." Casey had definitely sensed some hostility in the boy's words. He clearly hadn't recovered entirely from the rather unpleasant stay at Amelia's house. "Larvitar, use… uh… hold on." He fished the JAWS out of his backpack again and checked Larvitar's moveset, ignoring the Pokémon's bemused expression. Meanwhile, the newcomer Pokémon squirmed into what could perhaps be called 'battle position', somehow sensing the hostility emanating from Larvitar in waves.

"…Okay, now use Rock Slide!"

Larvitar stomped on the ground a few times. A nearby boulder became dislodged from its position and, with some body language coaxing by Larvitar, hovered above the Slakoth's head. The Normal-type didn't bother to look up at it, but rather shivered as it yawned again. With a loud battle cry, the tiny Ground-type brought the rock crashing down on his opponent.

<Hopefully,> yelled Larvitar, <this will teach you to respect your opponents!>

Caro snorted.

The Slakoth screeched and climbed out of the wreckage. It took a few steps away from the crumbled boulder and yawned, scratching itself behind the ear.

"Isn't it going to do anything?" asked Casey.

"Slakoth are exceptionally lazy," said Sheridan matter-of-factly. "In battles, they don't even do anything half the time."

"So we attack again. Larvitar, Rock Slide aga—"

"Hold on just a minute, twerp!" yelled an irritated voice from somewhere in the forest.

Before any members of the Groupie Galaxy had time to question this mysterious intonation, the presumed origin of the noise stormed out of the nearby underbrush. This presumed origin was a tall, slightly heavy man who looked to be about thirty, with white hair sticking out in two separate directions on his head. "Don't you know not to go stomping around attacking other people's Pokémon?"

"I thought it was wild," said Casey, crossing his arms. "Does it belong to you?"

"Yes it does!" snapped the man, before turning to his Slakoth and saying in a considerably less irritated voice, "Return." He held out a Pokéball, which sucked up the Pokémon instantly.

Sheridan gave out a pondering "Hmm." She was ignored.

Cramming the red-and-white object in his pocket, the man frowned at the sight of Casey's traveling companions. "You're a League Challenge trainer, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," replied Casey. "I'm getting Badges, so…"

"I know what you're doing," he snorted, arms crossed impatiently. "Why do you think I guessed you're chasing after a spot in the Hall of Heroes or whatever? No, I know what you guys do. Only Badge twerps run around with three other people in toe behind them. Seriously… I don't know what gets into you people, just following the kid around and begging to be—"

"Clyde!"

The man recently identified as Clyde stopped in mid-sentence in favor of letting his eyes widen considerably and letting a surprised expression wash over his face. Clyde turned around to face a woman's head that had recently popped out from behind a tree, much to everyone else's surprise. His body language (slumping his shoulders and sighing melodramatically) suggested he was not pleased to see her, and she didn't exactly look hyped up about finding Clyde, either. This woman's head happened to have a lengthy mess of very light pink hair, and it was not looking amused.

"Clyde," she continued. "You're supposed to be looking for Slakoth, not having a little chat with strangers!"

"This 'stranger' was trying to beat up my Pokémon," said Clyde in his own defense, holding out the Pokéball to prove it. "What was I gonna do, just return it and leave?"

"Certainly sounds like something you would do," said the woman primly.

"Tiffany, just shut up," Clyde grumbled. He turned his head to the group so that the woman behind the tree couldn't see him, rolled his eyes, and mouthed the word 'Sisters'. Thus accomplished, he turned back to Tiffany with a frown on his face. "Alright, whatever. I'm coming…"

"Well surely you're not going to just leave them here!"

"Sure I am." Clyde disappeared among the trees, long blue coat flapping weakly as he moved. "Whatever happened to not conversing with strangers, hmm, sis?"

Tiffany shrugged at the travelers. "I'm sorry. My brother Clyde has a total lack of manners, among other things… I feel like I need to make it up to you somehow."

"No, that's really not ne—" began Casey.

"Oh, I know!" continued Tiffany, not seeming to notice Casey's words in the least. "Would you four care to join us for some lunch today? Billy was being an idiot and packed way too much food again."

There was a unanimous, if somewhat delayed, nod. Free grub was not to be declined.

-

{A few days previous…}

"Sir, there seems to be a… development."

Fedora Man looked at his computer screen, which now displayed the cold but feminine features of a relatively plump twenty-something on the other end. She had steel-gray hair pulled up into a ponytail, but this didn't stop a mess of it from falling down into her face.

"With what?"

"Nami was just getting to focus the Beam. She was going to use it on… you know, the Rhyperior. Well, she had Juan here in order to help her – evidently, her immense knowledge was not quite immense enough to keep the Beam working. She needed to get everyone's favorite mechanic over from Rhoter City. Because, sir, you see…"

"It broke?" interrupted Fedora Man. "Solana, are you trying to tell me the Beam broke?"

"In basics, yes, sir," said Solana with a blank tone. "It broke."

There was a long silence.

"That would be a problem, wouldn't it," said Fedora Man. It was presented as a statement.

Solana nodded. "Nami told me to tell you about it."

"Why? It's a simple malfunction, isn't it?"

"Not exactly, sir," remarked the woman on the other end, frowning slightly. "Because, sir, you see, we've actually found out something quite unnerving about the side effects of that Beam."

"We know about the side effects of the Beam, don't we?" asked Fedora Man, standing up. "Potential mutations and power increases. That's it, that's all it's been showing for years, even when the previous residents were using it to track the creature… to track Her."

"Yes, but the scientists didn't have any arianite around when they were tracking Her."

"What's the significance of arianite in this?"

"Well, sir, without going on too long…"

"Oh, heavens forbid you did that," said Fedora Man. "Just be sure to get all the details in, won't you?"

"Of course, sir! Anyhow, you are aware that arianite was discovered in Kanto… the shards of a rock originating from outer space, makes Clefairies evolve and whatnot?"

"Yes, I know that," said Fedora Man. "I've known that since I was a—since I was in high school. Go on."

"There's no need to hide that, you know. In any case, we happened to have a sizable hunk of arianite on hand. It was being transported to another room for use in our… other project. Well, the arianite reacted strangely to the Beam. Just by being around it, just by letting the free-roaming waves get near it, that arianite began to emit power. And by placing it down near the Beam and retrieving a small chip of the other project material… well, we now have a little flicker of light hovering around the labs."

"A what?"

At that moment, the door behind Solana (which had previously been closed) creaked open. Fedora Man watched in awe as a small diamond-shaped light hovered in to the room. It had a faint orange aura about it.

"That thing, sir," said Solana bemusedly.

"I see it, Solana," said Fedora Man in a similar tone. "And… and what has the good professor said about this?"

"Upon consultation after the incident, he said that it was perfectly normal and that he would be quite surprised if it didn't appear. However, we seem to have come across a specimen different than what he has encountered in the past… he said that he had never heard of this small glowy friend being orange. Only green ones have been discovered. Of course, he also says this could be a side-effect of certain types being studied and others not, so…"

"What's your point, Solana?"

"Our friend the professor has been dubious about giving out all of his information," said Solana. "He never seemed to mention this previously, did you notice that? However, he seems to be a bigger help than we previously predicted. Should we remove him as you suggested?"

"No," replied Fedora Man. "That won't be necessary… Oh, by the way. How is the Mime Jr. doing?"

"She was perfectly healthy, so we sold her."

"Good, good. To who, though?"

"A rare Pokémon dealer. A large amount of them had crowded around our city in order to partake in some sort of yearly street festival. He was interested in her due to her strange coloration, and offered up a hefty sum for such a shady character…" Solana grinned wickedly. Certainly a change from her previous blank expression, but it worked just as well in the given situation. "No need to worry about her, sir."

"She went to a street festival? And… will she be sold again?"

"To some fortunate passerby of the stall? Of course she will. We can have someone make sure she is, if you'd like." Solana leaned her head on one arm.

"Not necessary," said Fedora Man, just realizing he had stood up and returned to his seat. He then continued the conversation as if nothing had happened, causing Solana's eyebrows to rise and the grin to fall from her face. "Whatever she does with her reformed life isn't ours to decide, is it? We're done with her."

"That's true as well, sir."

Fedora Man dusted himself off and stared at Solana as only Fedora Man could. "So is that all to report?"

"Yes, si—"

Fedora Man cut the connection there.

-

"Oh, so you brought friends, did you?" asked a laughing voice from the clearing ahead.

"Yep," said Tiffany. She had drilled everyone in the group individually on the way there; she also failed to notice (or was that ignored?) Clyde, who had been moving back to the camp ahead of them and left a trail of ecological destruction in his wake. Having done this, she also took the trouble of introducing them all by name. "We found them running around in the forest, and since you were kind enough to carry supplies for the next three years, I figured we ought to invite them over for some lunch. Alright with you, Billy?"

"I've got no problem with it," said the man sitting on a tree stump. He was similar to Clyde in some respects – about thirty, tall, white hair pointing in two opposite directions – but he was also thin as a stick, and the hair was much, much larger and less obliging to gravity. "Mr. Moody over there is a different story." He snickered again and pointed to Clyde, who had taken up residence leaning against a tree.

Suddenly, there was a little gasp from Sheridan's direction.

"I knew I recognized you… and then your names…" Sheridan put her hands on her hips and smirked in triumph. "Of course. You could be nobody else. Billy, Tiffany, Garret, and Clyde – the Go-Rock Quads!"

There was a silence.

"Well, at least the chick isn't completely worthless," grumbled Clyde. "She remembers us."

Tiffany grinned. "You're sharp, Sherry, you know that? I was waiting for someone to notice that! Good…" She paused mid-sentence when she caught the glare Sheridan was directing at her.

"Never. Call. Me. 'Sherry'," the woman growled. "Ever."

"Um, alright," said Tiffany, all jubilance gone from her voice. "You got it… um… yeah. Okay. No 'Sherry'. Sure."

"Thank you," replied Sheridan, hostility lost from her tone but certainly not back to her previous triumphant self. The male members of the group stood in silence – none of them had ever considered calling her Sherry, even Rotom, and right now they were all very pleased with themselves that they didn't. Billy didn't seem to be fazed by this outburst, as he simply smiled knowingly and whipped out a large amount of food seemingly from thin air.

"Sorry about that, guys. Tiffany doesn't take hints too smoothly, if you see what I mean."

"Hmm?" Tiffany asked, turning to Billy. "I heard my name called…"

"Nothing, nothing," the man mumbled, simply reaching out his hand and letting a multitude of foodstuffs fill them up as he did so. "Okay, sit down, I think we have everything we need… Clyde!" He raised his voice to be heard by his brother, who was now in the process of seeing how long he could stare at the forest before he got sick of it. However, upon prompting from the black-coat-donning man, he returned to standard walking position and slouched over.

"Finally," he said out loud as he sat.

Everyone else took the hint, and Billy climbed down from his wooden perch to sit upon the ground with the rest of them.

There was a few minutes of silence broken only by frequent chomping, until finally Grant decided to bring up the subject a lot of them had been pondering up until that point. "So how did you start conjuring food out of thin air like that?"

Billy froze up for a second, but then relaxed again. "Oh! You were talking about that! Sorry, I didn't quite get what you were thinking about for a minute. Anyway, have any of you guys heard of Hammerspace?"

Giratina chose the worst possible time to intervene. "Oooh, I've heard of it~" she sang softly through the Megaphone Rock. Casey gritted his teeth and ignored her.

Since nobody else could really answer that except with a shake of the head, Billy continued. "Oh, boy. I'll need to explain it now, won't I? Well, I don't know if you know this, but there are different dimensions in the universe. Lots of them." Minds temporarily switched to Caro, who fortunately did not feel all of the mental attention his case was getting. "One of them is typically called Hammerspace, because back when it was first discovered people used it to carry weapons around easily. Basically, what happens is you can store almost every item in the universe in your own specific part of Hammerspace, where you can later refer back to it and take out whatever you need."

This news impressed all of them, and the sounds of devouring had all but stopped. Even Tiffany and Clyde had paused their meals in order to listen to (and potentially correct) Billy. "It takes years in order to manipulate Hammerspace somewhere close to well, and fortunately all… all of us have been doing that since we were kids, upon request of our parents. Recently people have come up with some strange ways to use Hammerspace with just some machinery, but they don't work as well as if you've been training yourself and learned to Traverse – that's the name of the art so it's capitalized, person who does that is a Traverser – naturally. And that's my lengthy speech on the art of Hammerspace manipulation." Billy sat back and resumed eating. "Well?"

"He actually covered the basic points for once," remarked Clyde.

"As if you could do much better, Clyde? I think he did a good job." Tiffany hopped to the leaner brother's defense.

"Hmph, sure," replied the man in question with a shrug. "I thought he did a good job too, remember?"

"So…" said Billy, eager to divert the subject away from Clyde's numerous sibling rivalries. "You guys are running the Holon gym circuit, huh?"

"That's right," said Casey. "I'm the one doing a lot of the collecting. These guys came along for their own reasons."

"I see, I see." Billy nodded. "The reason I ask is that we've actually been traveling around for our own reasons. Sheridan, you've noticed that there's only three of us here, right?"

"I was wondering about that," she confirmed.

"Right. That's because Garret pretty much left with not much more than a note. It said something about how he was coming to Holon in order to pursue a profession that didn't involve the rest of us, because he figured that we were doing okay as it was and he wanted to do it for a while. Never told us what it was he was chasing, though…" Billy's smirking gaze turned to his brother. "Oh, and because he wanted to get away from Clyde, of course."

The Go-Rock Quad in question harrumphed.

"And so now you're trekking all over the region just to find him?" asked Grant, impressed. "That's dedication to your family there."

Tiffany and Billy basked in the good words in a perfectly-practiced fashion, while Clyde said nothing.

"Yes, we've been around," said Tiffany after a few seconds of almost-rehearsed beaming. "Garret has no idea, of course, so when we do find him then he'll be pleasantly surprised with our…"

"However."

Everyone looked around and finally realized the single word had come from Caro, who had been pretty much ignored up until now in the conversation. Evidently, he just didn't have uch t say…

"Are you quite sure Garret wants all of you around?"

There was a lot of surprised blinking before Sheridan turned on him, glaring. "That was totally uncalled for!"

"Yes it was," replied Caro icily, "but so was his disappearance, wasn't it? I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, but frankly his explanations for going off on his own sounded a little vague. And since he also wanted to get away from Clyde, who clearly returned the viciousness in full…"

Despite the unorthodox and absurdly out-of-character way Caro was bringing them up, everyone agreed (in varying degrees) that maybe he had a couple of points there. But there was a lot of worried glancing between siblings, and finally Billy (as the most talkative and least temperamental of the group) nodded his head. "That's all true, and you bring up a lot of good points. But even if Garret were trying to evade us on purpose, we ought to at least go out there in order to find out if he really did, right? And if he does then we can nod and go our separate ways. If not, we can see just what he's been doing all these months."

"I suppose so," said Caro before he lapsed back into his cloud of silence. It certainly unnerved everyone else; how long was their normally borderline-hyperactive companion going to keep this up?

"That's a good idea," seconded Casey in considerably lighter spirits. "You ought to do that."

"But first we need to find Garret, and we haven't covered much ground," pointed out Tiffany.

Billy smiled. "Exactly." He then turned to the newcomers with an almost pleading expression on his face. "Guys, I hate to push this on you when we've only just met each other today, but I don't know how many more opportunities like this one we're going to actually get. So… would you mind taking one of us with you as you go through the region? You know, just to find Garret? When we do, we'll leave you, I promise."

This was met with more surprised silence, even from his siblings.

Eventually, though, Clyde decided to finally take notice of the conversation. "A-are you serious?"

"Completely," said Billy. He sounded the part.

"Well, it's a good idea and all, Billy, but…" Tiffany hesitated, and eventually her sentence faded into nothing. "I mean, that's still a tall order, pulling us apart further…"

"Is it too tall for finding out what happened to Garret?" asked Billy, in a not quite accusing but mildly peeved tone of voice. "I don't think so. Besides, we can talk to each other whenever we want, right?"

Tiffany nodded. She had been silenced.

Clyde didn't object. This was perhaps because his face was doing all of the objecting for him; the glowering he was delivering to Billy was certainly not a glare to be trifled with. However, Billy apparently failed to realize that, as he took Clyde's lack of response as an acceptance and smiled. "We're all agreed on our side, guys. What do you think?"

"Casey should choose," said Grant almost immediately. "It's his journey, after all."

The other two members of the Groupie Galaxy, and Rotom (previously cuddled up in Sheridan's arms) squirmed free and had Beast nod his enthusiasm. "Yeah!" chirped the Pokémon. "Let someone come along, Casey! Pleeeeeeease?"

Casey realized with some concern that his Pokémon was acting like a little girl whose parents were contemplating letting her get a pet.

"Well," he said, "as a person I've got no problems with one of you coming along, but there's still the issue of funding to think about, right?"

"You think we're going to join your troupe and not give you anything for it?" snorted Billy. "Casey, that's not how we roll. …Anymore. In any case, though, no. We've got plenty of money we're not going to use for the rest of our lives, so seriously, that's not so big a deal anymore. Of course, Dad is still watching us, and trying to explain something to him would be like… well, reasoning with a sleep-deprived Primeape. So we can do what we can, which should probably fix all serious issues, but no over-spending to whoever ends up going with them. Got that, you two?"

"Right," the other two said in unison.

"Okay then!" said Billy, getting up and standing on the tree stump. "Let's do this!" He pumped his fist in the air, expecting to be met with a rallying mess of cheers.

Clyde just shifted his gaze towards Casey and mouthed 'He does it all the time'.

Do you know for how long I've been itching to read your fic? xD God I hate being lazy.

I read up to Chapter Four so far, and I was surprised that I was finding myself laughing here and there. Normally, I dislike comedy fics, but your fic is very well-written and entertaining to read. I love Giratina's pompous, "Grr, I'm the librarian, and Zero is my immortal assistant forever," attitude. xDD Poor Zero, but hey, his misery is our pleasure.

Caro is weird. :o But cool. I love how he just popped out and became Casey's unofficial Holon tour guide.

This confused me, though:

The voices faded. I descended into sleep again.

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Unless I missed something, Casey is the one who's falling asleep again, but you put "I".

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),

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One of my favorite parts. That got me laughing. It was a "lolwut" moment. xDDD

I'll be sure to leave another review when I read more chapters! :3

- Kat

Phantom Kat said:

Unless I missed something, Casey is the one who's falling asleep again, but you put "I".

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You're not mistaken. Somehow, in the transfer of that scene to first-person Casey to first-person Giratina (the original story was written by Casey's POV), I forgot to change that 'I' to a 'he'. |D Fail editing, much? Anyway, thanks for reading. It's good that the comedy is actually funny, because if it's not I don't think I could write any other way. xD

^ Oh the comedy is definitely something that works and amuses. ^^ You're writing too faaasssssssssst ;P

Read the next four chapters - not much to say on them really bar that it's getting more and more interesting. There seems to be less minor mistakes and the plot's moving nicely. I liked the battles thus far and I feel the 'tangents problem' so called earlier hasn't appeared here so that's...well, good. =P The level here is certainly the way to go.

Also like your additions (such as of the Murkrow falling THROUGH THE GROUND [yes the caps were necessary =P] as part of the explanation to what happens to wild Pokemon when they're fainted and gym puzzles, and so forth. Makes for good reading and I like this sort of thing in fics. =)

I'd note that the paragraph-of-description-after-someone-is-introduced tends to happen often still, and particularly it focuses mostly on clothing only - granted a lot of people have strange clothing (especially as your [awesome] pictures show XD) but again try to work it more into the story and events, and maybe consider some more than just about the clothing on occasions. However the other instances of description is just fine and is well done.

"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.

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Don't feel you need to start a new line here and have a closing and opening set of quotation marks as well as it seems to be the same person speaking there? But as mentioned, I like the explanations such as about the shiny Pokemon, heh. But my favourite was the method for using the evolution stones as the then-Murkrow demonstrated. XD

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.

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The wording of the last sentence seemed a bit odd to me - 'but the door opened' for the most part; doesn't quite seem to me with following 'Everyone looked up happily'. Maybe 'as the door opened for them.' rather?

was most definitely an irritating buzzing noise, it was coming from the city – specifically at the oversized tower where Those People tended to hang around, and it would… not… stop.

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Comma doesn't feel it works there - maybe make a new sentence, or add in an 'and' after it?

Much to his surprise, the aforementioned platform began to rise into the air, slowly at first. Casey realized with a jolt just what the railings were for as he clung onto them in surprise (after jumping about three inches off the ground).

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I suggest adding in that 'the' there - feels like it's missing the word without it otherwise.

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?

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I see what you did there. XD Yay for the references.

Looking forward to reading more of the next chapters, and I'll get around to it sooner or later. =)

bobandbill said:

You're writing too faaasssssssssst ;P

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Well, my computer has just been fried and I may or may not retrieve the next chapter, so you'll have some time to catch up, at least. |D

(such as of the Murkrow falling THROUGH THE GROUND [yes the caps were necessary =P] as part of the explanation to what happens to wild Pokemon when they're fainted and gym puzzles, and so forth. Makes for good reading and I like this sort of thing in fics. =)

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THROUGH THE GROUND???
(I love doing that. >3)
Anyway, if you like Gym puzzles, I've got quite a collection coming your way. Heh heh heh.

Don't feel you need to start a new line here and have a closing and opening set of quotation marks as well as it seems to be the same person speaking there?

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It is, but the next aragraph was utterly enormous and... I didn't know what else to do, I suppose. |3

But as mentioned, I like the explanations such as about the shiny Pokemon, heh. But my favourite was the method for using the evolution stones as the then-Murkrow demonstrated. XD

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The Evolution Stone method is also an old gag - though with TMs last time - but at least it's still enjoyable.

Comma doesn't feel it works there - maybe make a new sentence, or add in an 'and' after it?

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No, because Amarachi was listing things about that buzzing - it's loud, it came from the city, and it wouldn't stop. Though the formatting was a little funky, I admit.

I suggest adding in that 'the' there - feels like it's missing the word without it otherwise.

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I don't use 'the' before 'aforementioned' because it sounds wrong to me, but point taken.[/QUOTE]

*punts reads the rest of the chapters on page 2 - i.e. up to and including chapter 14* Well there's a bit of catching up. =) Good luck with retrieving the last chapter though... D=

Anyways this continues rather strongly still, as I expected, and dare I say the weak point with the descriptions seem to have improved as well gradually. =) The plot is interesting - mentions of Deoxys, a Delta Pokemon shows up (based from a card, that Fearow I believe? =/) and whatnot, and some nice insight into the bad-guys' side of things as well. Certainly seems to be building up nicely, and I wonder how Grant will turn out later down the track, heh. However it seems a bit odd that they waltzed into the base, got beaten, waltzed out... and little else happened to them (besides the 'trackers'). I'm not too sure that I exactly follow what happened with getting beaten, unless it's just normal mechanics that fainted trainers get ignored - but if so maybe point it out a bit more, or clarify some more?

The battles are good - you're managing the turn-based format with aplomb (and maybe a plum as well) - they're still interesting and entertaining. I like some more incorporations of the game elements as well, such as the losing trainer blacking out and returning to the Pokemon Centre one way or another. XD And it still amuses as well - stuff like 'new-Casey-logic' and the many 4th-wall-breakages are amongst those things. XD

"Caaaaa~seeeeeey~" cooed a voice from somewhere around the boy in question's head.

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I'm wondering if a comma or ellipse or something should be before the quotation mark, even if there's the risk it might look a little odd with the '~' as it's meant to be there anyways...

Togekiss flew back from the blast and crashed into the wall, and gave a distinctly un-fabulous croaking noise.

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XD Sound...unfabulous. =P Speaking of which my online spell-check thinks unfabulous is a word so maybe consider losing the hyphen?

"Lovely!" Hikaru beamed. "Now, please use Sky Attack."

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Apparently, Casey's yowling had caused Rotom to clear his head, and in that time he had generated a Thundershock. It flew directly through the Air Slash, severing it in multiple places, and was now on a crash course for Togekiss.

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It seems the move itself changed either side of the attack...

Casey ground his teeth. Golbat looked rather beaten-up; if Rotom could deliver another Thundershock and wipe it out, then Casey would return his own Pokémon on the turn after that.

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I's beaten up, but nothing before has given any indication on why it is beaten up, or whether it had been beaten-up beforehand... seems a bit confusing, this - maybe add in a bit earlier? (But I like the jibs at Golbat- err, Mewforsaken Bat Pokémon).

"Th-Thundershock," said Casey, with less force than he had in earlier repetitions of the word. "And – just for the record – I never asked about your office."


Rotom gathered its energy into one large, pulsating blob, and flung it towards Golbat with an unforeseen amount of force. (As a matter of fact, Casey could have sworn he heard Rotom groan with the effort.) It flew towards Golbat faster than the clunky Pokémon could retaliate, and sent the Mewforsaken Bat Pokémon* hurtling towards its Trainer. Hikaru, recognizing Golbat was down for the count, returned it before over 120 pounds of Pokémon meat was flung onto him.

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Presentation-wise - there's an extra line gap between these two paragraphs which shouldn't be there.

(whose eyes were cracked open, but who didn't respond to any prompting) was lying on the small red-colored couch,

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The 'who' there doesn't seem necessary as you've already established who is being talked about.

{13} dancing ludicolo dance
(don't ask about the title)

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I'll just say that it's awesome then. =P

Casey had been woken prematurely and as such was not in the greatest of moods, and was therefore a hypothetical blind man in a minefield.

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Maybe 'metaphorical' rather then hypothetical, as a suggestion? *shrugs*

In fact, one of the most powerful Trainers in the world once said, 'Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. They're only the false perception of
people' or something.

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Heh, I recognise that line. XD

Caro. Do not insult your author. That is seriously not a good idea. So maybe when you've discovered the Internet and end up reading you finally get a clue.

…Wait. Ahem.

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XD again the 4th-wall-breaking moments do amuse.
Hang on a moment...HOLD IT!

Any objections?" Nobody objected.

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OBJECTION! sorry I had to do thatAlthough on a side note objection is kinda repeated twice there - it's ok, but maybe consider changing the latter (e.g. 'Nobody spoke'.)

Marianne snatched the Pokéball and cuddled it tightly, singing in a high pitched tone, "Cloysterrr~ Coysterrrr~ my baaaa-by~…" The two people on either side of her – a well-muscled man with a red shirt and a skinny white-haired guy who had an electric guitar sitting in his lap – tried to inch away from her as inconspicuously as possible.

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XD Probably the funniest part in these set of chapters, seeing I visualised that very easily. XD

Onwards to the next chapters for me in a few days! =) Still enjoying this.