Emergence (Final Update - 28.03.12)

[Cobraroll]

Well, first time I ever try anything like this, and have seen that most stories here are in a downloadable format. This will be a straight-in-the-post story, chapter by chapter. Intervals between chapters will depend on feedback and/or nothing-to-do factor. The latter is quite high as of now...
I do not own Pokémon or any trademarks associated with it. I am not writing this for profit, merely for entertainment. I do, however, own the human characters of the story unless others are credited. If you want to repost this somewhere, ask me first or direct link to this topic. http://www.ninsheetm.us is the only site so far authorised to contain this. Thanks for reading.

Chapter one: Escape of a tyrant

Ask anyone, deserted forest roads are quite creepy at 2AM. Even moreso when you're alone, and you know you should have been in bed, and your only items for protection are a rope and a small Maglite. And you know that there is something out there that you are responsible for, and that shouldn't really be left unguarded, let alone in a forest. Sometimes, explainging your situation in second person makes it easier to cope with. In my case, it didn't.
The lights on the Maglite had already started to flicker, I knew I should have brought spare batteries when I left home an hour ago. Resigned, I turned it off, and let the distant light from the city, reflected in the clouds, guide my way. After all, the light might only drive him away, and I wanted to be done with this as quickly as possible. Get out there, find him, bring him back unnoticed, go back to sleep, and hope that the chains will hold this time. Or at least, that he won't decide to leave again...

Around the bend, something huge and shadowy loomed over the road. With a wheezing sound, the shadow turned, and looked at me, then... turned back. Only a tree bending in the wind. Nothing to fear. Not this time.
"Tree", I thought. "Only a tree. Can't hurt anyone. Unless it falls over". I sighed over my own thought, and remembered my friend's advice:
"You always fear the worst. Where has that brought you today? You're not going to get anywhere with that attitude..."
I hadn't answered, but a polite answer would have been something along the line of: "I have a too vivid imagination, and that has brought me into deep, deep trouble. In my current situation, it's best to always assume the worst"

Of course, there were all the times as a kid, when I had thought my neighbour was a witch, that my entire class conspired against me, that aliens were going to abduct me, etc. On some level or another, all kids get that. But in my case... it all seemed so real. It made sense. I was really believing that stuff. And what happened? Freak stamp and psychologist. This time, I'd keep the products of my imagination to myself. Given that it didn't manage to attract attention on its own.
After some intensive searching on the Internet, and even some mail exchange with a couple of guys who claimed to have seen Bigfoot, I had managed to construct a theory. It turned out that human imagination is a quite powerful thing, and that it has a sort of substance. And sometimes, it appears to be able to blend with reality. Dreams, for example, is imagination messing with your senses. You can see, hear, smell the dreams, and however weird it may be, you'll never stop and wonder. The dreams makes sense, as long as you are dreaming, but the logic falls apart when you wake up.
But not always. Most people have once in their lives woken up after a nightmare, still convinced that the demons are chasing you, or that your loved one is dead. That, I found out, is imagination blending with reality. Your own senses is the first place it connects. Then, in some rare cases, it'll go on to affect your surroundings. A lot of the "real" ghost stories you hear is just the results of a guy having a nightmare. The guys aren't nutheads, but their imagination has gone wild. After a while, usually just a few seconds, things settle, and the connection is broken. Imagination is imagination, reality is reality. But the memories remains.
One of the Bigfoot guys told me that he had woken up with the Canada Ape itself towering over him in his bed. When he woke up, it was appearently startled, broke a window and fled through it. He went back to sleep, but the window was still broken when he woke up. After that, he was convinced that what he saw was real. He, and a few others, saw it a few times in the following months. Eventually, it went off into the forest and disappeared, just as all the stories says it does.
What he didn't know, is that it didn't behave that way because it's meant to. It did because it was how he had expected it to behave. After all, if a thing is the product of your imagination, it has only your mind to base its behaviour on, right? If the guy never had heard of Bigfoot before, it would most likely have vanished the instant he woke up. No stories whatsoever to connect to. But because the world is full of Bigfoot legends, the Bigfoot believed that it was meant to wander off to the woods and hide for humans. Which it appearently did.
I hadn't been that lucky. One fatal night, some weeks ago, I had woken up after a particulary lifelike dream. I had dreamt that creatures had escaped from one of my many games, and that I had managed to get them all back except for one. But my "inner clock" also knew that my wake-up alarm clock would start ringing any moment, and in my dream, I was in my room, desperately trying to remember how I had fitted all the other creatures back into the game, and I had been very short of time. In the dream, it was very important that I got it back in time, but I couldn't. I simply couldn't. Then, the alarm had sounded. And, as I had discovered once I had opened my eyes, the creature still hadn't returned to its game.

And now, twenty-two days and nineteen hours later, I was out in the forest, literally chasing dreams. And for the umpteenth time, I stopped, closed my eyes, and tried to dismiss it as a dream, and no more. What I had seen had just been coincidences, not in any way connected to what I had dreamt. When I opened my eyes, I would go straight back to my house, get some hours of sleep, and spend tomorrow laughing of my own stupidity. Just a short mental peptalk to myself, then I'd turn:
"There. Are. No. Such. Things. As... Holy pancake!" A few steps ahead, lay something big, blue and metallic. And leading up to it, several footprints the size of dinner plates. Almost round, but with three triangular toes. I followed them, and found out that the blue metal sheet had no direct connection to the footprints. On closer inspeaction, it was revealed to be the right sliding door on a Wolkswagen caravan. The rest of the car was scattered in several pieces around the area. No trace of a driver or passengers. No blood. Just a very smashed up car. And footprints leading in a straight line towards the huge parking area, normally used by local citizens as a base for day trips. Most Sundays, the average local would stuff himself and his family in their car, drive out from the city and up here, park the car, and go walking a few hours, then drive back. My dad had dragged me up here countless times, so I knew the area pretty well. Like most local children, I used to have a small area that was "mine" up here. A small ravine between two hills, far from the paths, and never visited by anyone. The perfect place if you wanted to relieve some stress and be alone. A place I'd gladly fight to keep as my own. And I would do anything to prevent intruders from coming there. By all accounts, the creature I had unleashed had thought just the same. On the last five hundred meters of road leading to the parking area, I found four more cars. All seemingly recklessly thrown from where they were parked, and all pretty destroyed from the landing impact. Also, I had to climb over several fallen trees, by the looks of them, deliberately torn uproot and dragged here to block the road. Just like in the games, he appeared to be extremely territorial. And I was intruding his territory. Every possible department of my brain was screaming "Bad idea!", but I had long ago decided that it would be far worse to keep him here, to let him do as he wanted to. With a final sigh, I climbed the final barrier, and jumped down on the other side.

The parking area was, as I had half expected, half hoped, empty. It was about twice the size of a soccer pitch, lined with trees on all sides, and one road going from each corner. I had come from the northeast corner, "my" area was to the northwest from here. That road was not yet blocked, but neither were the others, so there was no reason to believe he had headed off in another direction. Hopefully, he had grown tired of blocking the road from the city, and had then went to the ravine to sleep. If I caught him sleeping, it would be a lot easier to get him home. I hoped. I had long ago realised that I didn't have a plan, but as they say, "it's never too late". I took a deep breath and took the first step into the dark path leading to the ravine. So far, so good...

A thundering thump to my left suggested otherwise and ripped me out of the planning. Startled, I looked at the rock that had crashed down a mere meter away from me. It was about the size of a washing machine, and must have weighed at least a couple of tons. More afraid than I had ever been before, I turned on the Maglite and illuminated the road ahead. In the dim glow, I could see a large tree moving towards me, roots first. Something huge was carrying the tree, appearently without breaking a sweat, and at the same time hurling rocks to build up another barrier.
"Taaaarrr..." a deep, growling voice said. Had to be him. The tree he was carrying thundered to the ground, and I could finally see him properly. Almost three meters tall, a bit bigger than the games said. Well raised, I assume. About one and a half meter wide, the spikes on his back making him look even bigger. Completely covered in green plates, resembling something between green rubber and sheet metal. Only the underbelly was another colour, deep blue. His eyes glowing faintly yellow in the glow from the Maglite. Evidently, he could move silent when he wanted to, but now, he was in battle mode. He walked slowly towards me, ground shaking with every step he took. His entire appearance roared out what my brain had told me all night: "Coming here was a really bad idea".
"Want to... come home?", I said, my voice sounding as scared as I felt. "You... can't stay here, you know". I tried putting my hand in my pocket, to search for a snack to feed him. Some chocolate might calm him down...
Rule no. 1, concerning things bigger than you: While they are facing you, threatening to crush you, putting a hand in a pocket is generally a bad idea. They never know what you may produce from there, and decide to strike before you can pose a threat to them.
TyyyyYYYRAAANniiTAARR!!, the thing roared. Yep, I was out in the forest, at stupid o'clock, facing a Japanese game monster that had escaped from a little electronic plastic device I kept on my bedside table. Now, straitjackets didn't sound like a very bad idea. I could have told everyone, and spent the remainder of my days in some nice place at the countryside, surrounded by friendly people. Instead, half a ton of Animé terror was regarding me like most people regard wasps in their living room.
"Quiet, you'll...", I began. It stopped. Took a deep breath. A small, orange sphere was forming in its mouth. The very air around us felt electrified, the ground vibrated slightly, and a voice in my head said calmly:
"Now, you run".
I ran.
 
About three seconds later, a full-power Hyper Beam hit me between the shoulder blades. The impact threw me through the air, out in the open parking area, and sent me flying across the open space, spinning like a mixmaster out of control. The beam passed me, hit a tree, and everything turned white. I'm sure the explosion could be heard all over the city, and seen from space. Because I had gradually fallen down while the beam continued in a straight line, the explosion started in front of me, the blast wave changing my direction of movement in less than half a second. Every bone in my body shattered from the inertia alone, and I was slammed to the ground, hard. I had no idea whether my eyes were closed or simply torn out, but I couldn't see a thing. Laying on the ground, deaf from the blast, feeling something I hoped wasn't spinal fluid flow from my nostrils, my last thought was:
"Now, how the hell can I explain this..."
Everything went dark.


To be continued... No, he's not dead

[GreekGeek]

That's really a great story, one of the best I've read in a long time in English. Keep the good work up!


TYRANITAR

 

[Cobraroll]

Well, this is what all you viewers have been waiting for! Chapter two!
Also, I'm thinking about a title to the story. Does "Emergence" sound well?

Chapter two: Back to business

After what felt like a few seconds, I regained consciousness. I was lying on my back, on something soft. I still couldn't see a thing. After another few seconds, I realised that was because my eyes weren't opened. Dreading what sights that could meet me, I kept them closed for now. The last thing I wanted to see now was my own shattered body, or Tyranitar looming over me again. Thinking about it, I didn't want that to be the last thing I saw, either, so I decided to lie still and wait for my life to fade away. It didn't feel too bad, I would have imagined it to be worse than this. The attack should have crushed a lot of body parts that ideally shouldn't be crushed, it was actually a miracle that I was still alive. The only thing that puzzled me was the fact that it was this warm, mid-August nights were usually mild, but... this felt exactly like lying in my bed at home. Was I still dreaming?

I opened my eyes, on impulse. Appearently, more time than a few seconds had passed. I lay in a bed, in a white room, featureless apart from a door, a window, the bed and a bedside table. On it was a candlestake with an out-burned candle in. Outside the window, I could see trees covered in a light drizzle of snow. How long time had actually passed? It was mid-August when I went out in the forest, now it couldn't be earlier than late October. Considering the coma period, factoring in recovery and therapy and all that, I couldn't expect to be out of hospital before mid-summer. At least, I could try to get an overview of my injuries. Sooner or later, I would have to find out, why not now? I tried lifting my right arm, expecting it to ache like there was no tomorrow. It felt all fine. Left arm. No visible injuries. Right leg. Left leg. Not a bruise. All in all, I felt all fine. I tossed the blanket aside and went out of bed. It was no harder than getting up at weekends, when I usually slept until 11. On the floor, near the end of my bed, I found some hospital clothes. Now, time to find someone to tell me what was going on...

There were no one in the corridor outside. Appearently, this wasn't the busiest part of the hospital ("After all," I thought. "this is the vegetable section"), but there should be a nurse on duty at all times. The only door leading out of here was locked. A sign near the door told everyone to keep it locked, because patients who wake up from a coma tend to be a bit delirious and may walk out of bounds. Frowning at the sign, I thought about battering the door until someone opened, but realised that that would only get matters worse. Instead, I found a door labelled "office", and knocked it gently. A middle-aged woman opened, a bit puzzled from the fact that a comatic patient had woken up like that. I spent the next hour explaining the doctors that I was all fine, but couldn't remember anything except from going out in the forest. "A bet", I told them. "See if I could manage to survive the weekend in the forest. I remember that I got to the parking area, then... nothing" In this situation, putting "being attacked by a game monster" in the "nothing"-category felt pretty normal.
Then mom and dad showed up, both in their working clothes, and I spent the next hour insuring them that I was fine, again telling the white lie about the bet. After I was finished, we sat in silence until I asked:
"What happened?".
Dad explained that there had been a meteor impact in the forest, and that the parking area was obliterated. They had seen that my hiking shoes were missing, and feared the worst when they heard the news. Luckily, they had found me in a makeshift shelter in "my" ravine, a couple of hours later. I had been physically all fine, but my clothes were torn, and I didn't respond to any stimuli. A doctor interrupted and said that was propably because I had panicked after the explosion, and thrashed about until my brain simply shut off. "Logical," I thought. No mention of mysterious footsteps or green monsters. I listened carefully to the doctor and what he said about the body's ability to hibernate, and wake up all fine afterwards. They had fed me well (intravenously), so I should be in such a good shape that I could return home tomorrow.

That night, as the clock ticked over to October 26, I found it difficult to sleep. Someone had appearently found me and made me a shelter, and I assumed that Tyranitar was still on the loose. Hopefully, he hadn't been found by some scientists, or the army or similiar. I don't know which om them who would suffer the most, but either way...
And what more could have happened? My very vivid dream was about Pokémon being able to escape the game, and me forgetting how to return them. Would I find my room in ruins when I came home, and be responsible for more monsters? What if Tyranitar was waiting for me when I came home? After all, I had kept him in our basement for about two weeks before he escaped. What would he be like now, when no one fed him? And what if creatures started to emerge from other games as well? I tried hard not to think about F.E.A.R., or, perhaps more family-friendly, the Chain Chomps of Mario fame. I think the sun rose before I managed to sleep, which takes a lot in October.

At home, nothing seemed to have changed. My DS still lay where I had left it, and there were no signs of activity in my room. Even if something minor had emerged, there would have been some signs. As soon as my parents were out of sight (they had to go to work, after all), I rushed down to the basement. Our house was quite old, and one of the rooms down there had a hatch in the floor, used as a refridgerator before someone invented just that. It was a small, moist hole in the ground, where I had tied Tyranitar the morning he emerged. Already when I came home from school that day, he had dug the chamber a lot bigger, and now there was a corridor running down from the hatch, down to a main chamber under our garden somewhere. I had no idea where he disposed of the soil, but appearently that was no hinder. Fully knowing that I would risk another few months as a vegetable, I climbed down the hole, listening carefully for any sounds. Tyranitar was of the Dark-type, and could see very well in this darkness. I only had a small pocket torch, that might enrage him if I shone in his eyes, but it had worked before. But not last time...

At least, someone had been there during the time I had spent in coma. The floor in the main chamber was littered with spruce needles, and a half-devoured tree trunk lay in the tunnel. Some parts of the chains I had tied him up with last time were still scattered around, appearently broken up in as many segments as possible. But there was no sign of him now. The chamber was roughly crescent-moon shaped, the one end ending in the tunnel up to our basement, the other appearently leading to the forest. I had spotted the latter the evening he disappeared, and assumed that it led to the forest somewhere. In which case it would have to be about a kilometer long.
"Anyone there?", I shouted and directed the torch at the tunnel. No reply. "Tyranitar?"
A low, distant growling. It might have been a car, on the road about six meters over my head, but I knew deep within that this was not the case.
"Tyranitar, come here", I shouted. then added: "I brought cookies!"
Louder growling this time. Then, a few seconds later, a deep, whoshing sound. I peered into the dark tunnel again. Another tree was heading down towards me, top first. Appearenly, this was his preferred food. After another few seconds, Tyranitar appeared, and I lowered the torch. He walked towards me, stopped, and looked at me with a corious expression.
"Do you understand me?", I asked firmly. He nodded.
"Am I your enemy?", I asked again. Curious expression, as if that was a really dumb question. Then he turned to the wall, stretched out a finger and drew a figure in the soil. A lage circle, divided in two halves by a straight line. Another circle, much smaller, in the center of the big one. A Poké Ball.
"Do you regard me as your trainer, even in this world?" (I had come up with those questions that night). Another nod. He drew eight more shapes in the wall. Badges, I guessed.
"Why did you hurt me?" He looked at the floor, growling lowly. When you look at the artwork, it seems like Tyranitar can't have other expressions than angry, but this one was definately deeply ashamed. I gave him a pack of cookies I had found in a drawer in the kitchen, to comfort him. He took it and ate it whole, appearently not having second thoughts about eating plastic.
"Do you know anything about what happened?", I asked. He shrugged.
"Do you know how I can get you back?" Another shrug.
"Ok then. Listen carefully. I give you permission to stay here, and to go get food when you need it. But only at night, and no hunting. Regard this room as your Poké Ball, if you wish. Let no one see you, except for me. Hide the entrance to the tunnel. I'll visit you every day. Do not attract attention. If I manage to get a proper Poké Ball out of the game, I'll let you have it. Understood?"
He nodded again. The case seemed to be solved for now, but something deep within told me that this was only the beginning. Oh, how right I would be...

[GreekGeek]

Very good. Really well-written, keep on writin' please Kudos

[Cobraroll]

^Your wish will be granted. Actually, I wonder if anyone besides you actually have read this, but it's fun to write, so I'll continue.
So yeah, here's:

Chapter three: Trouble doubles

I didn't sleep very well that night either. I had Tyranitar's respect, that was one thing, but what if someone found him? Would they take him away from me? Could they? What if he decided to stay with me, and went on a rampage as soon as they came to get him? Would he attack others? Nighttime is an excellent time for questions, but not for answers. I had no idea of what he'd do all day either. Sleep, I presumed, as he was a Dark-type, and at night, he would go up all that tunnel and get a tree if necessary. But it would be a life in solitude, and I wouldn't be much of a company for him. In the Pokémon world, we could have spent the day training, but here, he could barely walk without causing suspicious damage, let alone use an attack. And I was pretty sure that more Pokémon had emerged in my dream, without my interference, but only Tyranitar had managed to stay here long enough to cross over to reality. Were others still able to emerge? And if so, what would happen? Sometime between 2 and 3 AM, I finally fell asleep.

Like most dreams, this made no sense. No story or logic, but for once I was aware of that. All of a sudden, it switched over to my room, where I stood watching a picture on the wall change, telling some absurd story, like a TV on drugs. Suddenly, the story ended, and I was facing a picture of a well-known creature. A bird with a green head, big eyes and a yellow beak. A single, long feather hung from the back of its head, but as far as I could tell, the rest of the head was covered in fur. If the frame hadn't been in the way, I had been able to see the same face pattern, as if tattooed to its chest. The bird was eyeing me cautionously, but said nothing. I stared back.
"You have questions", a voice said. Neither I or the bird had opened the mouth (or in his case, beak), but I was sure it was him who had spoken.
"This is all in my mind, what?", I said back. The good thing about dreams is that you don't have to open your mouth to speak.
"Of course", it answered flatly. "This is your imagination speaking all the time. However, I am as real as you are"
"This is absurd", I said.
"It's no more absurd than you expect it to be."
"Anyways, you said something about questions. You can see the future, right? Can you answer?"
Xatu, also known as the Mystic Pokémon, nodded. "The future is of no use right now. But I can tell you, in less than a minute, you will wake up. We should have plenty of time"
"But what can you tell me then, that I don't know already?"
"Nothing. But I can tell you things you know, but have forgotten, or things you won't acknowledge. After all, I know nothing that you don't, and you know nothing that I don't. In dreams, I am only a part of your mind. It's not before the cross over to reality that I am Xatu to the full extent. You know all this already. More things you need to be reminded of?"
"Are any other games affected than my DS?"
"Only your Pokémon game, to be specific. Other games would be separate stories, other dreams, other crosses. So far, I'd only worry about Diamond"
"Can they cross freely?"
"They can, but only if you want them to. When Tyranitar emerged, you wanted him back, and fast. You were, in that moment, so obsessed with getting him back that there was no question whether or not he was out. You were so sure that he had emerged from your game, that your mind wanted him to be out. Otherwise, nothing would make sense. Understand?"
I nodded. Xatu continued:
"Your dream was not about Pokémon emerging. It was about Pokémon being able to emerge. There's a huge difference. When it became reality, it didn't mean that you had gotten a Tyranitar. It meant that your game was affected, and that Tyranitar had seized the moment. Taken advantage of the situation. The conditions are just the same now, as when he emerged. We are able to emerge at will, but it's your will."
"You're my Xatu?"
"I am. This dream would have been just the same if your game hadn't been affected, but it wouldn't have been me talking to you. It would be a product of your mind, not a product of the game code."
"Can I order, or want Tyranitar back?"
"The choice of emergence or not, return or not, is taken by your subconsciousness, not by you. You have control, but you cannot control."
"How do I reverse it?"
"I don't know, as you don't. Time to wake up". He said the latter very abruptly, and the dream vanished and was replaced by the sight of the inside of my eyelids.
I had never been so completely puzzled upon waking up before.

The next morning was time for my return to school. I didn't exactly look forward to it, I had never been particulary fond of school, and I had missed a lot of classes. There weren't many friends to come back to either, I was a guy who was at my social best on the Internet. I was a gamer type, not a party type. LOL over talking, etc. Xatu had also scared me, for all I knew, Pokémon could emerge from my game at any time. So, while socially not the smartest thing to do, I had decided to keep my DS with me at all times. Just hope that the bullies wouldn't find out...

"Hey, look, the vegetable's back!"
"Where have you been? Have they released a new Pokémon game?"
"Meteorite, huh? What I've always said, that guy is so big that he has his own field of gravity"
That last one wasn't one of the smartest guys around. Okay, I really sucked in P.E., and gamed a lot, so I didn't get a lot of exercise, but I wasn't overweight. It's just that everyone assumed so, judging from my lifestyle, thus I only got clothes that were too big. And as everyone in my family kept giving me clothes, I saw no reason to buy even more myself, even if they would suit me better. Thus, I kept walking around in too big clothes, making me looking a lot fatter than I actually was.
"What's the lesson plan for today?", I asked one of them I got best along with.
"English, Maths, P.E. You'll survive", he answered.

In some sense of the word, I did. English is never hard to catch up on, and in Maths, I had missed the entire subject of vectors. But as my teacher said: "It's equal parts of algebra and Pythagoras. You'll catch up in a week".
P.E. was a tad worse. As I've said, I sucked at it. To make matters even worse, most of my class were exercise fanatics. I still can't see a reason why I was placed in what essentially was a sports class. Even the girls beat me in almost everything, which was really annoying. I was seriously considering skipping PE today, but I had missed too much, so I decided to give it a go. I had second thoughs about leaving my bag (with my DS) in the wardrobe, but I left it near the door so I could easily sneak in and get it, in case I decided to leave early. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I was sure that the teacher wouldn't go too hard on me, first day and everything.

Wrong. Appearently, our sports freak of a teacher meant that if one has lain down, for any reason, in two full months, one should have more than enough energy to give everything. So one hour later, I found myself in the midst of the class, being the last one to complete the 50 situps that we were assigned.
"Higher up!"
"That one didn't count!"
"You'll have to start from 25 again if you take a break!"
And that was after the pushups, hang-ups, and some running exercises that made me feel like amputating my legs, so that I wouldn't have to do them again. Surrounded by the class, critizising my every move, and a yelling teacher, I rememberred why and how much I hated PE.
"Fourty-eight, fourty-nine, fourty-nine and a half... fourty-nine and three quarters..."
"They're right, those last ones didn't count. Come on!"
Finally, fifty. Heart pounding, panting heavily, I lay on the floor, silently cursing them all.
"Pretty useless, that", our teacher said. "Who's in for sixty next time?" The latter, he yelled to the entire class. Cheerful agreement from everyone.
"Two minutes break first?"
"Nah, we've waited... four already for him to finish."
And so, a few of them laid down and started, perfect situps in a perfect once-a-second-rythm. I was about to protest, when a loud noise was heard from the basement, where the wardrobes were.
"I'll go check", I volunteered, fearing the worst. The teacher nodded, but added "A hundred and twenty next week if you run away!".
The 120 situps weren't my main concern at the moment, rather what was the cause of the noise in the wardrobe. I dashed down the stairs, heart pounding even more. Another loud noise could be heard, and I slowed down. Rather nervous, I stretched out my hand to open the door to the wardrobe. It was one of those heavy fireproof metal doors, for some reason abundant in every school basement.
A second before I reached it, it burst open. Something huge, like a metal battering ram, smashed through the door, and I jumped. The heavy object pressed on the remains, tearing the pierced door from its hinges, tossed it carelessly out in the corridor, and I could see what was inside.
"Wow, it's huge", was my first thought. Filling nearly half the room, was a gigantic, four-legged metal creature, resembling a four-legged spider robot. The round, flat body, about one and a half meter across, was suspended from the legs, each of them tall enough to scrape the ceiling. A couple of lamps had already been torn down and lay in pieces on the floor. Its feet were steel plates, twenty centimeters thick and as big as manhole covers. The legs were thicker than most tree trunks, connected to the body by relatively thin metal poles. Its most prominent feature was the large silver X covering most of its face, earning the Pokémon its name; Metagross. Two large red and blak eyes stared at me, appearently not recognising me. I quickly dashed into the room, grabbed my bag, and threw myself back out, taking advantage of its confusion.
"GROOOSS!", it roared, and lashed out a leg at me from inside the room, not minding to aim through the hole the door used to be in. It smashed through the concrete wall like nothing, but missed me narrowly. I praised the fact that Meteor Mash only came with 80% accuracy, and took a few steps backwards, towards a door leading out to the schoolyard. I should be safe at this distance, it seemed to be trapped in the wardrobe, too big to get out through the doorframe.
"Don't be a fool, you saw how easily it broke that wall", a voice said in my head. Nope, trapped was appearently not the word.
"Calm now, calm now", I said, not feeling calm at all. I heard someone in the stairs, coming to see what the noise was. From the stairs, around the corner, they couldn't see the damage, but as soon as they came around it, my secret would be very obvious. Appearently Metagross had heard too, he stopped the rampage, and lifted a leg. The top of it pierced the ceiling as if it wasn't there at all. Then another. Bits of plasterboard rained down over the body. When it lifted a third, and then a fourth leg without toppling over, staying afloat in the air on psychic power alone, it became obvious what was about to happen. I turned around, darted through the door, and ran out in the schoolyard. Behind me, I heard the thundering crash of the four legs hitting the ground, Metagross' roar, and the violent sound of an Earthquake. The shockwave spread through the ground, hurling me several meters up in the air. My screams drowned in the sound of the school building collapsing, the asphalt being torn to pieces, and cars parked along the wall falling into pieces.

I landed face first on the asphalt, outside the very limited range of the shockwave. As I spotted on the way down, it simply stopped after a few meters, there was a clear border between very messed-up asphalt, and perfectly fine asphalt. Luckily, I hit the latter. My arms broke from trying to catch the impact, my nose hit the ground half a second later, about the same time as my jaw. Falling from a height of about five meters, your face will stand no chance against the familiar mix of gravel and tar. I was literally smashed to the ground, but managed to stay conscious. I felt that I had missed teeth in the upper jaw, I couldn't feel the lower jaw. The nose was broken, quite badly, and I had a couple of nasty wounds on my arms. Me knee bled quite a lot as well. Still, I managed to get up in a sitting position, watching the damage. The air was thick with dust, but it rained slightly, letting it settle quickly. Through tearful eyes, I saw that the entire PE wing was levelled, my entire class buried in the ruins. Apart from the two gymnastics hall, there were also three classrooms in the wing, on the third floor. In total, about one third of my school was ruined, in the junction over to the next wing several rooms were torn in half, horrified pupils were clinging to the walls, their classmates somewhere in the rubble below them. Water flowed freely from the pipes between the second and third floor, soaking the ruins. Then, the pain from my own damages struck me. I bent over, every inch of my face hurting like it was on fire, my arms useless, the right leg numb below the knee. Suddenly, the numbness spread. It felt like my bones were rearranging themselves, wounds closings like ziplocks, new teeth growing back, the old ones vanished where they lay on the asphalt. An invisble hand dragged my nose back in place, where the fractures cracked back to normal. The blood stains on my clothes disappeared, though the tears and holes remained. I was still aching all over, but appearently, everything had gone back to normal. Shaken, I stood up, clenching my bag in my left arm. Everyone was too shocked by the collapse to notice my mysterious regeneration, so not an eyebrow raised.
A creaking sound from the ruins revealed that Metagross was on the move. I ran over to the nearest manhole cover, bent down, and heard the sound of something flying, or rather levitating through the sewer tunnels, scraping the walls in the flight. I considered going down there and chase him, but realised that he was way too fast for me. Pretending to be one of the many who had panicked, I ran in a seemingly random direction, towards home.

The word spread pretty fast. I had hardly managed to change clothes and take a shower when mum called, asking if I was okay. I decided to tell the most likely-sounding cover story, that I had ran off during PE class and was home early. Given that noone had noticed me in the schoolyard, it gave me perfect alibi, I had done so before.
I managed to act like normal when she told me that the schoolbuilding had collapsed, with over a hundred persons missing, among them the entire rest of my class. After the conversation, I walked calmly up to my room, a hundred different plans forming in my head. I would need to check my game better, I could put Tyranitar on the task of trailing down Metagross, I...
I saw my bed, where it had all started three months ago. Suddenly, I felt exhausted, so small, so helpless. More than a hundred people were dead, damage for millions, mosters on the loose. And it was all my fault. I collapsed on my bed, crying like I had never done before.
I needed help.

[GreekGeek]

You're gettin' better and better, man. Keep writin', it's a shame nobody but me seems to read it

[Cobraroll]

Thanks again for your feedback! I really hope someone else reads this too. But without further ado, on to:

Chapter four: Hope?

I was pretty much crushed the rest of that day. My parents assumed that it was because of the incident at my school, so at least, they didn't suspect me of anything. However, in my state, I couldn't see the bright side of it. I stayed in my bed until stupid o'clock, mostly with my face buried in the (more and more soaked) pillow. I think my mom was in to look for me a couple of times, but I didn't respond to her.
Sometime around 2AM, I decided to go to sleep. I got up, still shivering, threw my pillow in the laundry, washed my face and undressed. As always, I threw my clothes on the floor, a bit careless where they landed. Unfortunately, my jeans hit a pile of game covers mid-flight, and toppled it. I sighed, and started tidying. A couple had landed in my bag, and were grey from building dust when I got them out. While searching the bag for more, I found my DS too, with the cursed game in. Out of curiousity, I opened it and turned it on. The game functioned normally, but my Tyranitar and Metagross were nowhere to be found in-game, as expected. After Tyranitar had emerged, I had written down a list of the Pokémon I had in-game (all 364), and concluded that I missed a Tyranitar (I had three, all of them level 100). By comparing now, I could see who had emerged. Luckily, only Tyranitar and Metagross so far. Hopefully, there wouldn't be more...

Still tears in my eyes, I put the microphone to my lips, and whispered:
"I need help. Please, help me". No sign of any reaction. Almost crying, I tried again. Still no response. Irritated, I considered for a second to break the game, delete the file, or release all the Pokémon. I had thought of it before, but had concluded that I might lose control of my Pokémon, maybe there would be no place for them then, and they would all emerge. In that case, I'd rather have nuclear war. Sighing, I turned the DS off and lay it on my desk. Then, realising how tired I was, I collapsed on my bed again, sleeping dreamlessly.

The next morning, I didn't feel much better. While turning off the alarm clock, wondering what to do now that the school was destroyed, I noticed something different. My DS still lay on the desk, but there was more. Eight decorative pins were scattered around it, and a backpack of unknown origin lay upside down on the floor.
"It must have fallen from the desk", was my immediate thought. I went to pick it up, wondering where it might have come from. Then I noticed something more: On my desk were three small orbs, or balls. Two of them red and white, one black and white, with a yellow pattern on the black half. They were no bigger than regular pingpong balls, but I knew that a press of the button between the white and coloured area would make them about twice as big. Poké Balls. Well, two of them at least, the third was an Ultra Ball. I picked one up to inspect it. Everyone knew what a Poké Ball looked like, but very few have ever held one. The regular Poké Ball was made of sturdy metal, not very heavy, and had what I first assumed was a serial number engraved on the back, near the hinge. Then, I noticed that it was the OT number, or Original Trainer. I tried to open it, and surprisingly, it popped open. The inside seemed stuffed with sensors, and a diode of sorts. No sight of any Pokémon. I pressed the button, and it shrinked back to normal size, in a way we were told at school that matter wasn't supposed to behave. Curious, I examinated the Ultra Ball next. It was empty too, so I assumed it belonged to Tyranitar, whom I had caught as a Larvitar ages back. Other than being a different colour, and a bit more heavy, it didn't seem different to the Poké Ball.
"Okay. One for Tyranitar, one for Metagross", I thought. "But what about the third one?"

This one was harder to open, and I gave up after a few tries. Also, a small strip near the hinge glowed faintly, possibly an indicator of sorts. Halfway excited, halfway terrified, I assumed there was a Pokémon in there, put it carefully in my bag, and went to have a look at the pins. It took me about two seconds to identify them as the Gym Badges of Sinnoh. No fancy case, like they had in the Animé, though, so I put them back on the desk. Then onto the backpack...

A knock on the door.
"Are you there? They called from school. Memorial service in the town hall at 9 o'clock". My mum. Hastily, I stuffed the Poké Balls and badges under the desk, and put the bag under my bed. "I'll go", I called back, frustrated, excited and sad at the same time. The most awesome gear any teenager had ever owned had literally dropped into my room overnight, but I had been interrupted.
"Come down within ten minutes if you want to say goodbye", mum said. "We're leaving for work".
A quick shower later, I waved them goodbye. A thousand different emotions were colliding in my head, this sure was confusing. And awesome. And sad, I had a memorial service to attend. And terrifying... Walking up to my room again, I wondered what to do the next hour (School usually started at 8, so I was an hour ahead of schedule). I wanted to check out the last Poké Ball, but what if it contained something dangerous? A Magmar could set the entire house ablaze by its prescense alone, a Weezing could poison me just by breathing, Whismur could reveal itself to the entire neighbourhood, and make me deaf in the process...

Passing the mirror in the corridor, I realised what poor state my clothes were in. The jeans were torn, the rest dirty from dust and tears. I put them in the laundry and searched my room for other clothes. Everything I found was too big, as usual, and one of the socks were missing. As the Universal Law of Teenager Rooms said, what was missing could always be found under the bed at some point. I bent down, dragged out the backpack, and found the missing sock in the farthest corner, grey from dust, and a hole in the heel. Useless. Now what? The backpack caught my attention again. I had a look in the largest pocket, and found a small soft package, not larger than a lunchbox. Curious as to what awesome Pokémon stash it might contain, I opened it, and found, to my surprise, several items of clothing, a full set compressed to a size not larger than my fist. It seemed like all the sets were identical, so I chose a random one and decided to try it on.

A pair of jeans, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, white socks with a Poké Ball emblem, a red waistcoat and a sweatband. I knew null about clothing, but I suspected that I had never looked this good before. That might as well be because these clothes fit me, for once. They were also surprisingly warm, I wouldn't even need a jacket with this on. In the backpack, I also found a belt and a couple of running shoes. The latter made me smile; they were comfortable, but the Devon Corp. logo might raise suspicion.
"Another day", I thought, putting on my old shoes. I had pinned the badges to the inside of the waistcoat, and put the Poké Balls in the backpack. They could be attached to the belt quite easily, but that would look too suspicious. Finally slipping the DS down in the backpack, I decided to go pay Tyranitar a visit.

I quickly found out that the Devon Corporation Standard Trainer Bag (^TM) contained "...everything a trainer needed on his journey to become a Pokémon master". The wash label also revealed that they were manufactured in Rustboro City, from there on shipped to every major city in the Pokémon world, and sold for an unspecified price. Continuing the search through the pocket (It seemed to be a lot bigger on the inside), I came across a collapsable camping bed, a bug lamp, a tent (could hold up to five people, but was smaller than a football when compacted), and finally, a flashlight. I jumped down the hatch in the cellar floor, walked down to Tyranitar's cavern in a way lighter mood than last time. I had plundered the kitched cupboard a bit better this time, not taking the entire package of cookies, and brought a variety of fruit as well. I had forgotten to visit him yesterday, so I wanted to be sure that he was still happy. I had seen his grumpy side, not wanting him to be like that again.
"Tyranitar?" No reply. I suddenly feared the worst, what if he had escaped again? After all, Tyranitar was often portrayed as quite selfish, he might have decided to escape once he was sure that I expected him to stay here.
"I brought you some food!" Still no reply. Had he really gone?
"Come here!", I shouted. Something large arose from a hole in the floor. I hadn't noticed it earlier, assumed it to be a rock or another tree trunk, but it turned out to be a rather sleepy Tyranitar.
"Woops, forgot your time schedule", I apologised. "Breakfast?". He grabbed the apple I handed him, and ate it whole. I dimmed the light slightly, allowing him to look directly at me. He examined my clothes, my backpack, and the bag I held in the left hand. Taking the hint, I produced another apple from it, tossing it to him. Like a dog, he caught it mid-air with his mouth.

I got an idea standing there. I had gained his loyalty, and Tyranitar was one of the strongest Pokémon around. Whatever was in the final Poké Ball, it couldn't harm me with him around, or what? I decided to give it a go. I found the Poké Ball, cleared my voice, and tossed it through the chamber, shouting:
"Poké Ball, goooo!" Too cheesy, I knew, but I assumed it would need some sort of call to open. It flew in a gracious arc, hit the floor, and bounced back towards me. I failed to catch it, all my attention was focused on the emerging Pokémon. At the moment, it was only a fog of light, then it gathered to form a shape, and the glow fainted.

It seemed a lot whiter than in the artwork, but it was pink as expected. About half a meter tall, standing on all four. Huge blue eyes, and a red jewel embedded in its forehead. A lot less intimidating than expected, I was looking at my very own Espeon.
"Do you understand me?", I asked. A voice in my head answered calmly:
"I can do better than that" I beamed.
"Finally, something to communicate with! Like Xatu, do you share my knowledge?"
"Outside your dreams, no. Here, I know what the world expects me to know"
"So you can help me?"
"Depends on what you want me to do"
I quickly explained the situation with Metagross.
"Ahh", it said. "I can help you find him, but battle him? I'd be a poor sight in that battle"
"Would I have to battle him to get him back?", I asked.
"Not necessarily, if you have his ball", it replied.
"I think I have it. When can we start?"
"You need to know a few things first. I sense you are upset, sad, confused..."
I interrupted her (I think it was a female Espeon I had):
"Okay. Tell me, why did Tyranitar attack me, and not you? Is it the badges?"
Tyranitar growled slightly, making me feel uneasy. He stood so close to me that he easily could reach me, and Espeon wouldn't stand a chance against him in battle. Espeon merely looked at him, listening.
"He's sorry for attacking you, but also slightly disappointed. We thought you had enough common sense to not invade a Tyranitar's territory at night, then blinding him without announcing yourself? You're his trainer! Had you told him, he would have listened! But no, you never spoke to him, just stuffed him around. He thought you were giving him no restrictions"
I blushed. Of course, I didn't give him any chance to see who I was, and was blinding him too. Of course, he would attack. Afterwards, he had propably seen me, decided to shelter me, then gone back to stay low.
"But why didn't the attack kill me?"
Espeon didn't answer. Suddenly, my left arm started glowing blue, and was strecthed out before me, out of my control. Espeons eyes also glowed, the same blue colour. Suddenly, her eyes flashed, and my lower arm was bent ninety degrees upwards. With a loud crack, the bone broke, and I screamed in pain. Then Espeon let me go, my arm fell down, hurting like it hadn't done since yesterday. Then it turned all numb, just like what had happened yesterday. With a series of smaller cracks, it was repositioned, and I could suddenly feel my fingers again. The hurting stopped abruptly too. Then Espeon said, still in the same flat voice:
"Any damage done to humans or other animals, directly or indirectly caused by Pokémon, will revert after a few seconds. We can make you faint, but not give you long-term damage, or kill you. I could have torn that arm off, you'd have it back by now. Under normal conditions, it would not heal further by itself, you will have to rest. You're weaker now, but a good night's sleep will cure that. Or a couple of these."
Three glowing, small orbs flew out from the backpack. I stretched out my hand, and caught them. Three small berries, like miniature lemons. Sitrus berries.
"They're quite tasty", Espeon said. Tyranitar made a grimace.
"Soo...(chew)... my class?", I said, trying one of the berries. Espeon closed her eyes, and the memory of the school building collapsing yesterday flew before me like a film projected on my retinas. Then I was back in the cavern.
"They will be fine, once they wake up. Like I told you, we can't kill, just knock out"
"And when will they wake up?"
"Hmm... not at this side of Christmas. Metagross has a wicked Attack stat, and the collapsing roof didn't make it much better"
I shivered with relief. Okay, they weren't dead, just KO'd for a while.
"Will the building rebuild itself too?"
Tyranitar snorted. Espeon said:
"No. Some changes can't be reverted that easily."
I remembered the memorial service, glanced at my watch, and realised that I didn't have a lot of time.
"Would you like to return to your balls?"
Tyranitar nodded. I didn't know much about Poké Balls, but they were appearently made to "provide maximum comfort for the Pokémon inside" - to quote the Silph. Co brochure I had found in the bag - and this cave wasn't very comfortable.

Ten minutes later, I found myself jogging towards the town hall, whistling the Route 12 theme. My merry mood was maybe not suitable for the situation, but I didn't care. Things sure looked a bit brighter now. I had a team, a means of communication, and a way of hiding the Pokémon. Now, I was sure I'd be able to cope with anything my game decided to throw at me. However, something deep within me suggested otherwise...

[kotorfanboy]

This does look quite good. I'll be sure to read it once I have the time.

[GreekGeek]

Haha this story is so freaking cool

[Cobraroll]

Woo! More feedback! Well, at least, it's more than the two of us now who have posted here. And thus, Chapter five commences the story.

Chapter five: When it could be worse...

The town hall was crammed with people when I arrived, the entire school was here, along twith the families of the victims. Several news teams were also at the spot, treating the service like a press conference. There were also some guards, checking that the journalists stayed outside the building. Being the sole escapist in my class, I had no one to meet up with, but the guards let me in after having checked the lists.
Two classes in my year had been in the collapsed wing, we were told by the headmaster when the service started. In total, seven classes had been involved in the incident: five in the wing, the two other in the junction over to the next wing. 118 people missing in total. On the bright side, the headmaster noted, was that none of the 23 people found so far were dead. However, they were all knocked out, and nothing seemed to wake them up. I felt a strong urge to stand up and say:
"They will, give them enough time to rest, and they will all wake up", but for obvious reasons, I didn't.

The rest of the service was the usual faff with two minutes of silence and all that. As I had no class to go with, a teacher dragged me aside and said that I would be with them from now on. Her class wasn't a full class either, they had had classes in one of the junction classrooms, and about half the class was missing. So I had to be with them for an extra service later, which was much, much harder for me than the other one. I could see that none of them had slept well that night, and all the girls were constantly crying. I knew that they were all fine, that all wounds would have healed almost instantly, but couldn't tell them. There was a lot of talking about death and losing near ones, and all that, in the end, I felt almost as bad as the rest of the class. Many of the others were going to yet more memorial services later, with the families and friends of the victims, but I barely knew any of them, and knew that they were all fine anyways. Around noon, I felt done with services, and walked home.

A quite surprising sight awaited me when I came home. My parents' cars, and another car. Upon inspection, I found a siren and a badly concealed blue light system in the front grill. Civic police car. I felt a sudden urge to run away, but stopped. After all, that would only make matters worse, if I was suspected of anything, it would be even stronger if I ran, and I remembered that mom had a cousin who was a policeman, maybe he had dropped in for a visit? Shivering, I walked in.

It wasn't mom's cousin. I was met by dad as soon as I walked in the door, and he didn't seem to be in a happy mood. Without a word, I followed him to the kitchen, where mom was sitting by the table, and besides her, a policeman was sitting. Neither of them seemed very happy either. I sat down, and the policeman started speaking:
"Hello. I would like to have a word with you concerning yesterday's events..."
I nodded, but said nothing. He continued:
"Two witnesses saw you running from the school wardrobes, in the exact middle of the collapse area, a mere second before it collapsed. According to them, you looked... 'panicked, like you were running away from something'. Your mother has said that you left the class early, to go home. Now, skipping classes isn't illegal, but I advice you to refrain from doing so in the future. Anyways, don't you think it sounds a little suspicious that you, the only escapist of the accident, was running away from Ground Zero just before the building collapsed?"
My heart was beating so fast and loud that it was strange that no one had commented on the sound yet.
"Your parents have told me about your situation at school. Few friends, moderate grades, behind the entire class in all subjects, and they suspect that someone's bullying you. I've met kids in that situation before, and many of them have done very stupid things"
I didn't say a thing.
"Also," he said after 30 seconds of silence. "They say that you spend a lot of time playing games and surfing the Internet. And in games, the solution to all problems is violence, right? And a teenager can find anything on the Internet these days..."
"Are you...", I said, terrified and angry. "...implying that I, a sad, bullied school-hating teenager, has got enough, found bomb recipes on the Net, and done like they do in all the games, blown the school up?"
He didn't answer me, but from the looks of mom and dad, that was exactly what they had discussed before I came home.
"May I see his room?"
We walked in silence up the stairs, up to my room. As always, it wasn't a pretty sight. The bed was a mess due to my bad sleeping, clothes lay practically everywhere, save for the space occupied by piles of game covers or comics. A full bookshelf was partially obstructing the window (the only place in my room with enough room for anything besides the bed and the desk), and most of the desk was filled with my computer and a TV. Four game consoles were plugged to the TV, so the floor beneath the desk was a mess of wires. The policeman inspected every bit of my room, and put my schoolbag in a plastic zipper bag.
"Evidence", I thought. After he had continued searching for a few more minutes, he asked my parents if it was OK that he took the PC's harddisk. I protested, but dad nodded, and the policeman produced a screwdriver from his pocket and removed the disk, which he put in another plastic bag.
"Are there other rooms in this house he uses regulary?", the policeman asked.
"Not that we know of", dad answered. "We rarely use the basement, though, you can check there"
I was very, very afraid, and very, very angry. How could they allow him to sneak around my private life like that?
"It's to your own best", mom said. "We just want to be sure"
"You'd be better off without knowing this", I thought, fiddling with the thought of releasing Tyranitar on him. A single Stone Edge or Brick Break. No evidence. And when he woke up, next February or so, everyone would be up and running again, no case against me. If mom and dad hadn't been here, I would have done that. Knock him out, put him in his car, and fake an accident. Pretend that he had crashed on his way here, and seal Tyranitar's cave and hide all the Pokémon gear before they put a new investigator on the case. But now, it looked like he would find the cave and the tunnel, link the explosion in the forest to his "teenager messing with bombs"-theory, and I'd be in Guantanamo before I could say "objection", faced with mass murder or attempt to do so. I was desperate. We walked down to the basement. Mom, dad and me watched him go from room to room, presumably searching for explosives. Finally, he found the room with the hatch.
"What have we here", he said triumphing, opening the hatch. "Find me a flashlight"
"You. Are. In. Deep. Trouble.", my mom said, almost crying from rage and sorrow. Dad looked about the same, and without a word, he went upstairs to find a flashlight.
I was broken as well. The day had gone from bad, to good, to very bad. And it wasn't 1 PM yet. Dad returned with a flashlight, and we all climbed down the hole, and started walking down the tunnel.
"Only a miracle can save me now", I thought.

Sometimes, miracles come in small packages. Other times, they are quite big. Nightmares may also come in big packages. Nightmares can be about four meters wide, two and a half metres tall, and made out of blue metal. Finding Metagross here was one of the last things I had expected, but still, here he was, halfway down the tunnel, the cross on his face shining brightly in the flaslight's beam.
"What is that?", the policeman said, terrified. "A robot?"
"I've seen that one before...", mom said. "On the poster in your room. It's..."
"A Pokémon", dad finished.
"METAGROSS!", Metagross roared. The roar made the tunnel tremble. My ears hurt tremendously.
"Calm down!", I shouted. I still had the backpack on me, I hastily took it off, dug out the empty Poké Ball, and yelled:
"Metagross, come back!"
A narrow red beam flew from the Poké Ball, and hit Metagross, which instantly turned red and transparent. Then it vanished. A light strip on the Poké Ball lit up, indicating that there was something inside it. I put the ball back in the bag, and found another ball.
"Mom, dad, unknown-policeman-that-never-told-me-your-name, I'm sorry", I said, a plan forming in my head. I activated the Poké Ball, and thus the microphone embedded in the hinge, and murmured "Espeon, your go". The three of them watched carefully as the ball opened, the cluster of light finally forming the shape of a creature.
"Espeon," I sighed, trying to find any flaws in the plan before it came to fruition. "Hypnosis"
Around me, mom, dad and the policeman collapsed on the floor, sleeping deeply before they hit the ground.

Half an hour later, we sat at the kitchen table again. Espeon had helped me get them up from the basement, and had given them false memories of the last hour. They all now fully believed in my cover story, and the policeman was "just dropping by to hear your version of what had happened". Coincidentally, both mom and dad had decided to leave work early today, and the cave in the basement was never there. Actually, it still was, it was just that they were unable to see it. The door to that room was also, just in case, firmly locked, and the only key lay twisted at the bottom of the litter bin in my room. A Psychic Pokémon wouldn't need a key to open it anyways.
We waved the policeman goodbye after a final cup of coffee, and I went back to the basement while mom and dad were watching sports on TV. Well back in the cave, I released Metagross again. I had brought a couple of speakers from mom's iPod set (never used), hoping that he could connect to them somehow.
"Are you with me?", I asked Metagross (some readers will recognise this as the short version of the questions given to Tyranitar in chapter two). After a whooshing sound in the speakers, the reply came in a very deep voice:
"I am"
"Why did you attack me?", I asked, fearing that this way of greeting would become standard procedure.
"I needed to get out, and you wanted me to get out"
"I can understand the earthquake, but then, why did you try to hit me?"
"I panicked", he said calmly. No emotions whatsoever, a panic attack seemed quite unlikely. He continued:
"Suddenly, I was there, in that far too small room. I wanted to get out, and then someone appeared. You. I didn't recognise you at first, and I knew that it would be very bad if anyone saw me. Thus, I tried to knock you down."
"You're a supercomputer", I said, a bit irritated. "A hundred and whatnot trillions of calculations every second. You had a year ro recognice me, so to speak"
"You were sweaty, red-faced, scared, and dressed weirdly. Not exactly like in the game", he replied. "Still, I wasn't sure. If I had been determined on knocking you out, I'd have used Psychic, or just demolished the place before you got a chance"
"Do you have any idea on how many people you crippled in that single attack?"
"Not at the time, but now, I see that 82 people are still trapped in the ruins." I was about to correct him to the latest number I had heard, 95, but he said: "Internet newspage. Still no casualities"

I sighed. "Can we say we're even now? If you just help me getting the harddisk back in my PC, I will forget that you put my school in ruins and sent a hundred people to dreamland for the remainder of the year. OK?"
"I'm sorry", he said in a completely different tone. "I can help you wake them up, if you like. There is a very easy, and in fact quite obvious, method..."
I listened to what he said, his "very easy and in fact quite obvious" method. Actually, that didn't sound that far-fecthed.
"We'll deal with that tomorrow", I said, smiling. Things were going up again. And still, it hadn't passed 2 PM. I was convinced that things were getting better from here on...

[Cobraroll]

Well, I know there has been no feedback lately, but I know that at least one person has read the previous chapter. Besides, the nothing-to-do-factor shoots through the roof now. This will be the longest chapter so far, but I've got plenty of inspiration to continue, so I think this is the best chapter so far. Here goes:

Chapter six: Change

The twentyninth of October. Time to get back to school for me. Like yesterday, I was dressed in a trainer outfit, they fitted a lot better than my old clothes, and were a lot more practical (you could swim with them, they would be dry ten minutes later, if the brochure was to believed) anyways. I still brought the trainer bag with me, if mom decided to sneak around my room and found it, I feared that she would deliver it straight to the police. Besides, it when dealing with Pokémon of this size, it would be a lot safer to always know where they were.

When I approached school, the damage didn't look that bad. The entire area was fenced off, with guards and everything, and a lot of cars were parked in the school yard, mostly ambulances, fire trucks, and equipment trucks. On the other side of the road, several news team vans were parked, but no one had begun work yet today. From this angle, one couldn't see the collapsed section, only a corner of the huge tent they put up over the rubble to cover the area. But as I came closer, I could clearly see that an entire wing was missing, with scaffolding put up to prevent more from falling down. The morning news stated that the theory everyone went by, was that a water pipe had sprung leak, and washed away a lot of soil, down the sewer pipes. A cavern had gradually formed under the wing, and eventually, it couldn't stand the pressure from the building above anymore. With such a feasible theory, no one would even consider the "monster causing an earthquake"-explanation. I was happy.

I met the rest of the class at the maksehift bus stop outside the school. Most classes were scattered around the city now, as the building here was declared unsafe. There weren't many here today, about five or six people, but I had expected to be the only one to show up. After all, half their class were listed as missing when I checked last night, and I wouldn't expect anyone to get over the loss so quickly.
"They've found them!", a girl beamed when I approached the small group. I think her name was Greta. She smiled, so either were they all OK, or she had unexpected tendences of sadism.
"Who?", I asked, "The rest of the class?"
"They're OK!", another girl exclaimed happily behind her. "Unconscious, but alive! All of them!". I smiled, trying to act surprised.
"How? Wasn't your classroom on the third floor?"
"I don't care if it sounds impossible!", the second girl yelled. "I've talked to the folks at the hospital! I know they are alive!"
"That's great!", I said, carefully. I had absolutely no experience with girls, and in a time of so much emotions, talking to them was like playing Russian Roulette.
"How many are still missing?", a boy asked. I recognised him as one of the players on the school football team. He must have been 1.90 tall, and didn't look like the most emotional guy around, but he sounded like he was on the edge of crying.
"About thirty", Greta answered flatly. "They dug out the upper floor classrooms tonight. The roof was in one piece, and when they lifted it away, they found fifty people underneath. Two classes, two teachers. I talked to the guard over there".
She turned towards me.
"The gym halls are still buried quite deep. It's been nearly 36 hours, and the expectations of finding your class alive is..." she didn't finish the sentence. I forced myself to forget for a moment that they could in no way be harmed, to put up a sorrowful face.
"They weren't that nice to you, were they?", another girl asked. I looked at her, not answering. She continued, now blushing a little:
"Ive heard horrible stories from them, but didn't believe any of it. I think you look nice". I smiled. I had seen her before, but didn't have a clue about her name. She smiled back, and some tickling feeling spread through my body.
"I'm Emily, by the way", she said, blushing even more. "Rob", I answered, not knowing what else to say. My real name, of all things, was Roberto, but no one used it. Even when reading my name, most people referred to me as Robert, assuming that the second O was a typo. I never protested, to this day, I hadn't got a good explanation from my parents on how they came up with that name.
"John", the football player said, and we shaked hands. "Nice to meet you".
"Miley", the girl behind Greta said, she who had yelled at me. "No Disney jokes, or you'll regret"
"Hannah's a bit grumpy today", another boy smiled. "Edvard, nice to... -ouch". He rubbed his ribs, appearently Miley could punch harder than it seemed at first.
"Bus", Greta said calmly. We stepped aboard, I got a lone seat as usual, but John and Edvard in front of me were happy to include me in their conversation.
"Wonder where we are going to have classes?", John said
"I hope it's somewhere downtown", Edvard said "Where things happen, you know"
"I'd be perfectly fine without more happenings now", John and I said, nearly in unison.
"Oh, right", Edvard said. "Knocked out for that long, and the first thing that happens after that is that the school goes to gravel. Are you cursed or something?"
"Maybe...", I said. "But it can always get worse"
"Hey, cheer up! Where will that attitude bring you? Get out a bit, enjoy life!"
"Someone with an @ in the name asked me the same", I replied. "Didn't go too well, I mean, I went out to the forest to escape the dangers of sitting passively by a computer, and what happened? A freakin' mo...-meteor"
"Ohh... Edvard said, luckily taking no notice of the near use of the word "monster".
"Well, I was lucky. Caught a cold a week back. Was supposed to be back on Tuesday, but skipped. Then mom called, saying that the school was destroyed. Heck, I never want to feel like that again"
"Were you there?", I asked John.
"Yeah", he said, his tone getting more serious. "It was awful. Suddenly, that sound, and then the roof disappeared, and the floor, like, tilted, and the wall and the rear end of the classroom just fell down. Dave, just a meter behind me... I can still hear the scream ringing in my ears. I can't remember exactly what happened aftewards, but it was awful. Then I heard late yesterday that they had found them. Never been so relieved before, and that includes that time in Morocco, when I finally found that toilet when... Anyway, I decided to give school a go today"
After a minute of silence, Edvard broke the silence by starting a discussion about foreign food, and the mysterious absence of toilets in cities abroad, which kept us busy the rest of the trip. And I didn't give my Pokémon a thought.

Our makeshift school was a small section of a conference center near the woods at the other end of the city. The six of us were assigned a few tasks to do, but no one really cared. There was only one teacher on two classes, and we were put in different rooms that, to our amusement, were located two floors and a really long corridor apart. As the other class was a year six class, the teacher spent most of the time there, as the office neighbours started complaining about the noise over the intercom even before she reached our room. At the end of the day, we had done next to nothing, but I had got to know this part of the class a bit better.
As expected, Edvard seemed to be the clown of the class. He always had a witty comment ready, didn't take anything too seriously ("Ruins the fun", he said), but got solid grades and got along with everyone. John was the sportsman, didn't say too much, but was kind to us. According to Edvard, he was a lot chattier when his friends weren't buried under a collapsed school.
Greta, Miley and Emily were usually part of a larger gang ("I think they're seven or eight, too many to count", as Edvard put it), but had their individual traits. Greta was usually the informed one, always knowing what to do next, had always done her homeworks, and had always a plan ("Wait until you see her in an unexpected situation. Freaks her out completely"). Miley was appearently a skilled singer, but had stopped taking lessons a couple of years ago ("Guess why"). She didn't always take jokes, and could seem a little snappy at times, but was nice when you got to know her. Emily was more mysterious, she was always the one you noticed last, and said nothing if you didn't ask her. Didn't bother others, no one bothered her. She seemed nice, though, and smiled a lot ("In my direction?", I wondered. It may have been wishful thinking, or coincidence, but it seemed like she paid more attention to me than the others).

As we waited for the bus to bring us back to the school, the girls suddenly walk over to where I stood. Following a couple of seconds of awkward silence, Emily said:
"Umm... we were thinking about having a Halloween party, but then the school collapsed and we kinda cancelled it, but now that they are OK, we thought... well, we wondered if..." Greta rolled her eyes and continued, while Emily turned a deep red:
"What she said. Halloween's on Saturday, you know. We had a party planned, but... yeah, you know. But now, as there really is no reason to depress like that, we decided to bring the plans back on track. What little blushy was supposed to ask you about, we wondered if you wanted to come too? Half past eight on Saturday, at Miley's place (no jokes about Disney, please). No alcohol, her parents are quite strict about that. Dress code: costume fit for the occassion. Want to come?" Emily hadn't moved, but seemed a lot smaller and didn't say a word, appearently carefully examining the ground.
"Umm... yes, thanks", I answered. Something like that had never happened before. Except for that time in year seven, when someone in my class invited me, and gave me a false adress. I had recognised it as the adress to a burial bureau, and didn't go.
"See you, then", Greta said, and she and Miley walked away again, leaving me and Emily here. John and Edvard were a few meters away, and hadn't heard us talk.
"So... where does she live", I asked her gently. She startled, and turned an even darker shade of red, before she quickly recovered and said she should look it up later. The bus arrived, and John and Edvard dragged me with them to the rear end, whereas the girls chose seats near the front. The year six class filled the rest of the bus, and made quite some noise, but I was near oblivious to that. Emily sure was kind to me, but she was the kind of person that could naturally treat everyone like that. Then again, why all the blushing? I had been lost in questions many times before that week, but this was something different. And, I hoped, this kind of questions was a tad more normal than the others.

I was happy to discover that Emily didn't give me trouble sleeping, as I could do with a few nights of proper sleep now that I finally had sorted out my main problem. Friday we were about twice as many from the class, there were only a couple that still stayed at home now that everyone had heard the good news. Unfortunately, that broke up yesterday's mood a bit; now, John was hanging out with a couple of friends, he introduced me to them at the bus stop, but I didn't really fit into their conversation, so I left them to find Edvard. His usual gang was much easier to talk to, I met Matt and Andy, who were considered the "geeks" in class. We had a lot in common, so the talk went on without many interruptions most of the day. Every now and then, I glanced over to the girls, but Emily was on home turf now, with her friends and proper school work to do, and didn't look back as far as I could see. After we had come back to school, however, I suddenly bumped into her when we got off the bus.
"I forgot to give you this", she said in a more sassy tone than yesterday, the shyness was appearently gone. I took the small note she handed me. "Her adress, and her number in case you can't come", she explained. "See you there, then!"
A short smile, and she was gone. I read the note. Just as she said, only an adress written in capital letters, and a phone number. No further message.

"Forgot something?", a voice said when I got home and up to my room. I turned around, and saw Espeon lie on my bed, staring blankly at me. She held her Poké Ball in her paws.
"I escaped - yes, we can if we will - last night, hid under your bed, and you didn't check if everything was there this morning. Stupid."
"I...", I muttered, and the answer was in a different tone:
"I can read your emotions, you know". I could feel my face getting redder.
"Anyways, Metagross wonders when you want to resurrect your friends. I suggested waiting until we know where everybody is"
I nodded. "Better not do it now, they who are still trapped in the ruins would be squeezed to death a few seconds later"
"But either way", Espeon said. "Be more careful. This time, I avoided attention, next time, I might not be that lucky"

The remainder of the day was spent gaming, a thing I hadn't been able to do for a while. I even turned on my DS, equipping all my Pokémon with stuff that might come in handy in case any of them emerged, and filled the in-game bag with medicine. Another quick check showed that no one had slipped out without me noticing, something I took as a good sign. After a few hours, I lay down on my bed, thinking, trying to reconstruct the week:
Sunday - woken up from coma.
Monday - gotten home. Settled things with Tyranitar.
Tuesday - started - and demolished - school.
Wednesday - Found Metagross, received Espeon.
Thursday - met Emily (worth listing as major event?).
Friday - day off. Lovely.
Future - as uncertain as always.

Part 2 to follow shortly.

[Cobraroll]

Chapter six, part two:

Then Saturday came, and I started wondering what "fit for the occassion" meant. Something scary, I suspected, but what? I chatted a bit with Matt, who already had a costume ready. I had told mum and dad about the party, and thought that it couldn't hurt to ask them for ideas.
"The people from the government, they are scary, aren't they?", mum said.
"Yeah, every time I see one of those tax-people, I break a sweat and grab my wallet", dad chuckled. "Want to borrow a tuxedo?"
I sighed, but, in the absence of better ideas, never mind time, I agreed to give it a try.
"Not exactly James Bond", I thought after trying it on. It fitted, but I looked like a boring government official on my way to work. Still with the tux on, I decided to go down to the basement and ask my Pokémon, they looked scary enough to perhaps provide some tips. Well back in the cavern, Metagross and Tyranitar looked at me. The sight of them together in the semi-darkness was enough to wet most people's pants, they were both huge, and with a naturally angry expression. The cavern had widened a bit, though, and I could see a third tunnel in the wall behind them. I guessed I would find some broken sewer pipe if I went to explore it, but no time for that now.

"Attitude!", Metagross made the iPod speakers roar after I had explained the situation them. "You look like an insecure teenager on the way to a school ball", It snorted. "Which, given the situation, isn't half bad, but you need the little extra, if you don't want to be made fun of". Tyranitar nodded.
"Tar", he snorted, and handed me a pair of sunshades. Blackglasses from the game, by the look of them. He must have been holding them when he emerged.
"Enchances the Dark-moves of the holder", I remarked. "Should make me appear more scary, at least"
"Not without the attitude!", Metagross roared again. "Straighten up! Be on the alert! Black suitcase! Profession! Look like you're there to spy on somebody. Like in the movies. Mr. Green!"
I recognised the Matrix reference. After a bit of instructions, and borrowing a suitcase from dad, I didn't look half bad. A bit small to look dangerous, maybe, but as Espeon said, a bit of confidence would cover that up. I stuffed the suitcase with contents from the trainer bag, handcuffed it to my wrist ("Adds to the effect"), and tried to fake an emotionless voice. Now, I was ready.

The party was like any other party, I guess. I didn't have the best costume around, but I got a few compliments (most notably from Emily). No one had gone for anything gory, everyone was still touched by the school-collapse and the image of half-crushed bodies, the state they thought the rest of the class was in, was still on everyone's mind. There were a few witches, a couple of girls had gone for the vampire look, Andy had gone for the toilet-paper-mummy-solution, and Matt didn't look half bad as an alien. Edvard had was simply dressed in a police officer outfit, and was taping parking tickets to everyone's backs when they didn't notice. After the initial pizza and something to drink, the four of us sat down on the sofa, talking about the usual everything. Someone put on a CD, and the loud music made it difficult to talk, but we kept going. None of us liked dancing much, and Matt's costume made it harder for him to move as well. When the clock passed ten, Edvard said he was going to sprite things up a bit. He had appearently brought a CD himself, and sneaked over to the stereo. The sight of him running like crazy, chased by Miley, while the tones of "Best of both worlds" blasted through the house, made everyone bend double with laughter.

"Wanna dance?", a voice said behind us a few minutes later. Greta, Emily and another girl I couldn't remember the name of stood regarding us with mild interest. Andy stood up, leaving strands of toilet paper in the sofa.
"A pleasure. Greta?"
They walked off, arm in arm, in a way that showed that both took it as a joke. Matt murmured something about the costume hurting his legs, but the girl I couldn't remember the name of dragged him with her anyways.
"Now?", Emily asked.
"I really can't dance, sorry", I said, aware that I was blushing quite badly.
"It's really easy", she said. "Boring, even". She sat down. "So I prefer talking to you instead".
I looked at her through the glasses. "She doesn look half bad", I thought, for about the hundreth time that evening. Not that tall, without being small either, skin that was a few colour tones away from being pale, brown hair, and eyes I couldn't see the colour of with glasses on. For the occassion, she was dressed like a vampire of sorts, long, black and red dress. She looked about as scary as your average running shoe.
"What's in the suitcase?", she asked, mostly to have something to talk about.
"Stuff", I said and shaked it. "Looked just stupid not having one". Awkward silence followed. We were only interrupted by Edvard passing by, muttering something along the lines of "How can they run that fast with those shoes?"
"Always the funny one, that guy?", I asked her.
"Usually", she said. "You got a parking ticket again..." she bent over and removed the note from my back.
"Turtledove #1", she read and blushed. "Umm... we're just friends, right?"
"Yeah", I said, having expected the question to come sooner or later. "If you say so, and want to, then I'm fine with that"
"It's not that I don't like you", she said in a low voice. "But I have a lot to think about at the moment, and..."
"I see", I said and smiled. "Just friends, it is. Looks like you got a parking ticket as well". I removed it. It read "Yeah, right".
"Did he expect us to have this conversation after finding yours?", Emily exclaimed after reading it.
"You're sooo predictable, you know", Edvard said, fluttering by, a huge grin on his face.

About half past eleven, this final night in October, the party slowly burned out, guests starting to leave. Emily and I decided to walk toghether, we had largely the same route to go home. The air was chilly, but it wasn't that far to go. Just before we split up, I noticed someone was alking towards us. Taller than most men, it looked like a scarecrow from this distance. A scarecrow with a wide-brimmed hat, and a way of walking that could only be described as "dangling", he was lifting his feet way higher than necessary, and didn't bend the knees. He waved his arms around a lot too, it looked like he struggled to retain balance.
"A drunkard?", Emily whispered.
"I think I know him", I whispered back. "Stay here"
As we both approaced a street light, it came clear that my assumption was right, my stomach knotted in fear. This was no man, no drunkard walking home in a scarecrow costume.
"Cacturne!", I hissed. This one night was luckily one that people would expect creatures like him roaming the streets. It stopped, looking at me. I whispered:
"Has anything happened?" It nodded
"Have more Pokémon emerged?". It grinned eerily, nodding again. Fear and shock spread through me like wildfire.
"Listen to me. Pretend that you're a human in a costume. Speak to no one. Do not follow me, but be back at my house in half an hour. Understand?" Another nod. "Good, now, walk away"
"Who was that?", Emily asked.
"Distant cousin", I lied. "Recovering from celebral parecy. Was on his way home too". All I wanted now was to get home and see what had happened, but I had to say goodbye properly first.
"See you on Monday, then?", I asked.
"Guess so. Do you live far from here?"
"Just follow the noise", I joked. A short giggle.
"See you, then!", she said, and gave me a hug.
We then walked off down each our road, my heart thundering in my chest. As soon as I was sure that she was out of sight and hearing range, I started to run.

The sight was overwhelming, to say the least. Terrifying wasn't even a covering word, this was far beyond any of my wildest nightmares. The street and my garden was literally crammed with Pokémon, dozens of them. I stopped stiff, looking at what would have been the weirdest Halloween party ever. A huge Steelix, at least twenty meters long, loomed over our house. Most of it looked all right, but a gaping hole in the living room wall showed clearly what had happened. On the neighbour's roof, I saw Sceptile and Garchomp examine the chimney. A Hitmonchan and a Blaziken was in the middle of a playful fistfight on the road. A Venusaur and a Meganium were standing around the remains of our garden greenhouse, the plants inside had grown to huge proportions. The garden was a mess, a Dugtrio plowed around in the soil like a duck would swim on water. A Feraligatr, more than three meters tall, was sniffing at the neighbour's litter bins. I could see our neighbour himself, lying face down on the road, a huge slash in his shirt hinting at what had happened. A barking sound from inside the house, and their dog, a large doberman, ran out, appearently furious, teeth blotted, ready to attack Feraligatr. The huge blue croc in turn stood up, waiting for the canine's attack. The dog leapt at him, going for the throat. Feraligatr raised a clawed hand, clenched the fist, and lashed out at it mid-air. The dog flew across the road, hitting a cluster of thrash cans like bowling pins, and smashed hard into the wall of the house behind.
"STOP IT!", I shouted. They stopped what they were doing, and formed a crowd before me. They were all a lot larger than their Pokédex entries stated, I guess being at lv. 100 affected the size as well. I suddenly realised how much skill it took to handle these, how much they were expecting from me.
"Stay here!", I yelled, then ran for our house.

I found mom in the kitchen. Here clothes were burned to singes, as was the refridgerator behind her, and there were scorch marks in wide arcs on the floor. Charizard, I guess, that tail was really dangerous in small rooms. Still, she was all fine, if KO'd. Dad was in the living room, which was in a far worse state. Most of the ceiling had huge slashes in it, the furniture was shredded to pieces, and the aforementioned hole in the wall was threatening to widen any second, I could tell that what was left of the wall barely hung together. I found dad in a pile that also consisted of the remains of our TV, a cupboard, and something I guessed used to be our sofa. Whatever had hit him, had hit him hard, there was a bulge in the wall above him. I ran out to the crowd of Pokémon again; angry, confused, and sad.
"Clear up this mess immediately!", I shouted. The wall to the living room straightened up a bit, broken planks flying back into place. Still, it looked terrible. I could see several psychic Pokémon with their eyes glowing, doing what they could to repair the damage. The greenhouse was bent back into position, but the glass plates remained shattered. The neighbour and his dog flew back into their house, carried by an invisible force. The garden was largely evened out again, grass springing back up. Most of the Pokémon stood gazing at me, awaiting a command. I had no idea what to do next. I was tired, afraid, all that. Then, in the distance, I heard sirens. Appearently, someone had called the police. I panicked.
"Get away! Hide! Run!", I shouted, hearing the sirens come closer. "Stay hidden until I come get you!"
The Pokémon scattered in every imaginable direction. Steelix dived head first into the asphalt, tearing it apart like nothing, burrowing away at speeds no one was able to match. A few flying Pokémon, among them Pidgeot, Dragonite, Salamence, Beedrill and Staraptor, flew off and into the darkness, most of the Psychics teleported away, and some plainly ran, most of them heading for the manholes, escaping in the sewer tunnels. After a few seconds, I was alone in the streets.

Then I realised what I had done.

[GreekGeek]

I'm really glad to see you continued writing while I was in Greece. It's a great story man, especially his feelings for Emily and the messy house at the end.

[Cobraroll]

Thanks for more feedback! Now, I hope to hit another page soon, this topic kills my scroller wheel each time I add a new chapter.
Like now.

Chapter seven: Mass outbreak

I was stunned. Still standing a bit pathetic on the road, debris scattered around me, I couldn't understand how much of a fool I had been. If my assumptions were right, I would find a bunch of Poké Balls in my room, it would have taken me five minutes, and I would have had control of everyone. Instead, I told them to go hiding, all over the city as well. The sirens in the distance came closer and closer, I might as well turn myself in, admit everything, live the rest of my life in prison while the government took care of the Pokémon. Or?

I opened the suitcase and took out the Poké Balls. After all, I had control over some pretty awesome creatures here, and they had to be of some use.
"Go!", I shouted, a bit annoyed over the fact that I still hadn't found any alternatives to voice activation. Metagross, Tyranitar and Espeon leapt out on the road.
"Metagross", I asked. "Can you jam the police signals, mess with their GPS a little? Buy us some time?"
"Order, not ask", Metagross answered in my headset. "You won't get any respect that way"
"Do it, then!", I shouted, then turned to Espeon. "Get inside and find some clothes for mom and dad. Get them dressed, I'll come assist you soon. Tyranitar - try to fix this". I pointed at the hole Steelix had left in the road. Then I ran after Espeon, back into the house. The hole in the wall was partially fixed, at least it didn't threaten to collapse anymore. I tried not to look too much at the living room, and ran up the stairs. They were quite narrow, there were claw marks in the walls on both sides, pictures lay shattered on the floor, and several steps had deep slashes in them. The corridor outside my room was in a similiar state, the door to my room was torn of the hinges and lay inside the bathroom. I wondered how Steelix had managed to get out without crushing the entire house, but no room for questions now. I peered inside my room, which weirdly enough wasn't much damaged. There was the occassional claw mark in the floor, and the window was pushed further open than it used to be, but oddly enough, the Pokémon had left it without doing much. The most obvious sign of Pokémon activity was the jumbled heap of Poké Balls that lay all over the floor. I searched the room a bit, and found the trainer bag on my bed, exactly where I had left it. I took out a few objects, then ran downstairs again.

Espeon had cleaned up pretty well, considering the circumstances. Mom lay in a chair, still black from soot, but dressed acceptably, even though all the clothes were found in the laundry and about half of them were dad's. The clothes dad had been wearing were all intact, so Espeon had simply lifed him out of the rubble and laid him on the kitchen table. I decided to wake mum first, she was the one who tackled shocks best. I held up one of the objects I had found in the bag. It was prism-shaped, a bit larger than an ordinary chicken egg, and wrapped in brown paper.
"Can you assist me here, Espeon?", I asked. "How do i use it?"
"Take off the wrapping", she answered. "Then just press it against her skin. Couldn't be easier"
The object - a Revive - was slightly glowing in the dim light. According to a brochure I had found, the Revives were actually organic, and grew much like potatoes, in the ground. No one had any idea on where they came from, nothing happened if you buried one, but in certain places, they were to be found all over. Very rarely, a mutation happened so that several Revives were fused together, to form a Max Revive. This never happened in the greenhouses, though, only in the wild. Thus, the brochure stated, Max Revives couldn't be bought, only found by those who were lucky.
"Will it work on humans?", I asked Espeon.
"Time to find out", she answered. "Revival herbs definitely do, but they're not as easy to cope with"
I pressed the Revive against her cheek. It suddenly started glowing intensely, becoming all white, then it simply disappeared, seemingly melting into her. Mom twitched, and her eyes opened.
"What? Rob? What's happening?", she asked. "There was some noise, and a dragon. Am I in hospital?"
"No", I answered. "We have little time. Could you help me wake up dad?"
She rose from the chair, shaking slightly. Espeon lifted dad over from the table, and into the empty chair. I opened another Revive, and pressed it against his right hand. The same glowing, and he too woke up.
"Where's the bear?", he said puzzled. "There was a huge bear here. With a weird ring on its belly. Am I dreaming?"
"Yes, you are, both of you", I answered, getting an idea. "Right, Espeon?"
"You are dreaming", she repeated. I was sure that everyone could hear her telepatic voice, which had gotten a strange whooshing sound added to it.
"Go to bed now, it's late. Never mind the damages, you are only pretending it"
Without knowing why, I felt very tired, and started to walk for the staircase along with mom and dad. Espeon sighed, and pulled me back.
"Resistance!", she whispered. I suddenly felt all awake again. "I'm going to keep them in bed all weekend. I can't erase the memories of the outbreak, they were too much of a shock, but I can make them believe it was only a dream. Help the others in the meantime"
"Are you still there, Metagross?", I whispered in my headset's microphone. I had snagged it from my computer and used it in my costume, but it wasn't connected to anything. Still, I could get a reply.
"Can't confuse them much longer now", he said.
"Can you withdraw the call? Call them back?"
"I can, but it will only raise suspicion. Get Espeon out here."
I ordered her to come with me, and went out. They had done a good job with the road, it was a little patchy, but still in better condition than most roads around here. The garden didn't look too bad either, the neighbour's trash cans had been put back into place, but our house was still a mess.
"We need illusions", Metagross explained to Espeon. Normal roars sounded, but he translated in my headset . "Lots of people, slightly drunk. Make the house look ordinary smashed up, like a party gone wrong. Get his parents as well, explaining it to the cops. Very few of the neighbours saw what actually happened, we'll deal with them tomorrow. Espeon, do your best". Espeon looked at me, awaiting confirmation.
"Go", I said. Suddenly, the garden was seemingly filled with partygoers, decorations and empty beer bottles. Not exactly the kind of party mum and dad would have, but it would do. I found the Poké Balls again, withdrew Tyranitar and Metagross, and let Espeon direct the scene from underneath a bush. Then I ran into the house, up to my room, and watched the images of my parents explain the situation to the police. They seemed to accept it as another party getting out of control, and drove away. I had gone promptly to sleep after that if it hadn't been for another thought hitting me. I ran downstairs again, and unleashed Metagross.
"We need to keep the illusion", I explained to him.
"Put up some screen that shows the house in this state, and keep it there. Just so that it doesn't raise suspicion. We'll fix the house tomorrow, I have an idea of sorts"
"That was more behaving like a trainer", its voice huffed in the headset. Something that looked like a huge bubble suddenly encased the house, like a snowglobe.
"Now, finally time to get some sl...", I started, then remembered Cacturne. I told Metagross to keep an eye out for him, and went to fetch all the Poké Balls in my room. I made a quick count as I collected them in a plastic bag, and stopped on 87. Three Pokémon should be manageable. I could perhaps control six without getting problems. Ten if necessary. Ninety, however, was more of an issue. The now so familiar feeling of helplessness struck me again. Fighting to hold back tears, I went back to the garden and waited for Cacturne to show up, which he oddly enough did after five minutes, without much trouble. The clock showed twenty to one AM, he was half an hour late, but it was OK, I had had enough to do in the meantime. One hour ago, I had been a normal, happy teenager on my way from a party. Now, I felt like the guy who had invented dynamite, responsible for a lot of trouble and suffering already, with plenty more to come. I left it to Metagross to find the right Poké Ball for Cacturne, and went back in to sleep, tears flowing freely.

It was eleven o'clock the morning after. I sat on the veranda, a half-eaten breakfast lying beside me. Metagross was still standing in the same spot, motionless, maintaining the bubble around the house. I had already done quite a bit of tidying, most of the rubble now lay in a neat pile near the back of the garden. Espeon and I had paid all the neighbours a visit as well, erasing and replacing memories of last night. I felt a little guilty for doing so, but as Espeon put it, they wouldn't be much happier knowing the truth. Cacturne was sleeping now, I had taken him out of the Poké Ball this morning, but he had just found a place in the sun and slept standing as I hadn't given him other orders. Metagross had also shown me how to see which Pokémon each ball belonged to. There was a button that, when pressed, produced a small hologram of the residing Pokémon. Handy to check which Pokémon who had emerged. However, I found it easier to use the DS, and now sat scrolling through the PC boxes on my game. The results weren't very uplifting. All the Pokémon who had emerged were at lvl. 100 (I had about 300 of them), but luckily no legendaries. Still, there were quite a few Pokémon on the list that would be a pain to get back: Scizor, Aggron, all the starters apart from Torterra and Blastoise, Dragonite, Hippowdon, Weavile, Exeggutor, Machamp, Alakazam, Gengar, Mismagius, Electivire... 86 missing in total. I had no idea where to start, hopefully, a few of them would return on their own, like Metagross did.
"Metagross!", I shouted. It turned around, slowly, looking at me.
"Why did you come back?", I asked.
"Meta!", it roared back. No speakers to connect to. I went and found mom's iPod speakers, and asked again.
"I had no other option", it answered "I scanned your cellphone, found the numbers to your parents, checked the online phonebook for the adress and went here."
"So you can connect to the Internet?"
"I am a computer after all", it chuckled.
"Check the Internet papers and see if there have been any encounters"
"Nothing so far", it answered a few seconds later. My gamer self envied Metagross the connection speed it must have possessed.
"But, they have dragged out all the vicitims after the school collapse. We should go pay them a visit tonight"
I nodded. "Are they all in the same hospital?"
"Yep, we'll have an easy job reviving them. Just to crush a few Revives to pieces and put it in the ventilation system. Not optimal, perhaps, but it will seem less suspicious if they wake over a longer period of time. We won't heal them much, so they may get quite a headache, but that's just fine. People would start asking questions if they all woke up all fine."
"Tyranitar, how's brickwork going?", I asked. Around the corner of the house, Tyranitar had dug a tunnel down to his cavern. From there, he had found a lot of rocks, and now he was cutting them to bricks, with his claws alone. He scraped the sides even like people normally slice cheese, the strenght of that Pokémon was immense. We had decided to rebuild the wall with bricks, it seemed easier and sturdier than replacing the planks.
"Tar", it answered, as always. That could mean anything in my ears, but to the others, it was a language as good as English was to me.
"We only need a few more", Espeon said. "Could start putting them in place in half an hour's time"

Metagross interrupted, his voice didn't seem to be as confident as it used to:
"I've checked the military radar", he said, voice shaking slightly.
"They have found Salamence."

[Cobraroll]

No feedback?  Nothing to do?  Let's write another chapter. I know that someone has read the last chapter as well, so this isn't as fruitless as it may seem.

Chapter eight: Flight of the dragon

"WHAT?!?", I bellowed. Metagross didn't say anything.
"Could you connect to a TV or something? Let me see the radar images?"
"I could, but your TV lies in a pretty bad state in the back of the garden. Do you have something else?"
"My computer! Connect to that. Let me see the radar, and hear what they say. Now!" I sprinted upstairs, sliding on broken picture frames and torn pages of books that lay in the staircase. When I reached my room, the screen already showed a radar image, and voices were coming from the speakers. A lot of techical fuzz, I couldn't make much sense from it, but I understood one thing. They had sent a jet fighter after Salamence.
"Where is he?", I yelled out of the window.
"Somewhere over the mountains. East of here", Metagross answered. "And get your headpiece on, no need to scream then".
"Espeon!", I shouted. "Come up here, please. Could you put me in contact with Salamence?"
"He's too far away", she replied. "A Darkrai or Mewtwo, perhaps Mismagius, could do it, but not me"
"Any help there, Metagross?"
"No", he answered.
"Espeon, find me Salamence's Poké Ball", I said.
"They have a range of 150 - 200 meters", she answered. "We're dealing with distances a thousand times that."
"He could maybe recognise the signal", I said. "Go, find it"

The next ten or so minutes went painfully slow. Salamence had been circling around for a while, seemingly aimlessly, and the plane was slowly approaching him. We found out that the jet had cameras, so Metagross put their readings on my other computer screen. I had sent a Poké Ball return signal out of the window a few times, but according to the radar, Salamence didn't notice.
I sat trembling in my chair, watching the jet come closer, then, suddenly, it appeared that Salamence noticed too. It changed course drastically, flew towards the city, the jet started to pursue.
"We have visual contact", a voice in the speakers said. I could see a small red and blue dot on the camera screen.
"It looks like a dragon from here. Blue, not that big, perhaps five meters long. Red wings. Speed about 200 and increasing. 250. 250 and steady."
From what I could understand, they used meters per second as speed unit. 250 m/s, that was about 900 km/h. Salamence flew very fast, but the jet outspeeded him by far.
"Heading for the city. I repeat, heading for the city, course 90."
"It may be dangerous. You are cleared to shoot to destroy. We repeat, shoot to destroy"
"No!", I screamt. "Can they kill him?"
"They can", Espeon answered. "But remember who they are messing with. He can fight back, and he fights hard"
On the screen, I could see that the jet fired a missile. He wouldn't have any chance. A few seconds, then an explosion.
"Salamence!"
"He's still there", Espeon said. "Watch the radar".
Truly enough, Salamence was still strong. "Must have been Protect", I whispered. "Can he outstall them?"
"Perhaps, but knowing Dragons, he's angry now."
The cameras suddenly showed Salamence split into two. Then four. Then even more. In a few seconds, there were a dozen Salamence flying in a steady formation.
"Double Team?"
"Doesn't trick the radar, nor the heatseekers", Metagross snorted. The formation broke, Salamence were everywhere around the jet. The true one had found a position just beind it. The jet banked and turned sharply, took a large turn and was soon behind it again.
"What can he do?", I asked as the jet fired another missile. Protect has a larger chance of failing the more you use it, so I was starting to worry. Still, the shield went up, and Salamence flew on unharmed this time as well.
"He's about fifty kilometers away", Metagross said. "Espeon, use Flash, he might see us"
"Worth a try", I agreed. Espeon leapt to the windowsill, I turned away and closed my eyes. A bright flash, brighter than any camera's, lit up the room, even the reflection from the wallpaper blinded me through my eyelids. According to Metagross, it was visible at the jet's camera, but he had been kind enough to scramble the signal at that moment, so the guys guiding the plane didn't see it.
"He's heading towards us", Metagross said.
"I'll connect to him", Espeon said. Then a few seconds later: "I have contact. I'll tell him everything you say".
"Salamence, fly over the forest, but keep within two kilometers from here", I said. "We're going to take him down"
Outside the window, I could see Salamence as a small spot on the blue sky, with the fighter jet a few hundred meters behind. The Double Team copies had appearently vanished.
"Do a loop", I said, remembering a trick from a plane simulator. "At the apex, fire a Draco Meteor. Then, use Aerial ace on any tree out of sight from the footpaths. Land in the forest, near the small ravine. We'll meet you there"
After a few seconds, I could see Salamence plunge towards the ground, the jet following. About a hundred meters above the ground, Salamence started to climb again, the jet copying his moves.
"Metagross, give them some error messages", I said. "Preferably the missiles, tell them that they explode too early. Should cover it. Shut down the cameras as well"
Outside the window, I could see Salamence and the jet, upside down a couple of kilometers above us. Then, above them, a small cloud formed, then solified and rushed down ("Like a missile", I thought ironically), towards the jet's underside. Contact.
Salamence plunged, while the jet exploded in an enormous fireball behind him. The impact of the meteor had obliterated much of it, detonated the missiles and ignited the fuel. A few hundred meters above the ground, Salamence vanished from sight, Aerial Ace kicking in. I left the room, running down to the garden.
"Tyranitar", I said. "I need a ride. To the forest, through the tunnel".
Tyranitar nodded and smiled. I climbed onto his back, clinging to one of the many spikes. He runned to the hole in the ground, bent down, nearly throwing me off, and climbed head first down the hole.

It didn't look much like it, but Tyranitar could run. It was hard to hold on, being thrown from side to side with every step. I bent down, trying not to picture low-hanging stalactites and sections with lower ceiling. It was completely dark in the tunnel, but Tyranitar didn't slack off or cut the speed because of that. I had no idea of the speed we were travelling at, but we reached the end of the tunnel in a few minutes. Tyranitar stopped outside the tunnel, which ended in the ravine. The opening was hard to spot if one wasn't down here, but it was really obvious from here. We had to cover it better later, I bet the military would be all over the forest in a few minutes, searching for wreckage and the pilot's body.
"Salamence?", I shouted. No answer. I climbed out of the ravine, looking in all directions. Loads of trees everywhere, a few holes where Tyranitar had uprooted trees, but no sight of a dragon.
"Keep out of sight!", I hissed to Tyranitar, then shouted again. "Salamence!"
Still no answer. I ran towards the footpaths, going for a spot with a better view. Luckily, I knew this area pretty well, and after a few shortcuts, I stood on a spot overlooking the forest, the city, and in the distance, the ocean. It was a cold, clear autumn day, I could see pretty far here.
"Salamence!", I shouted. Nothing happened. I found his Poké Ball in my pocket, stretched it out at arm's length, and shouted again: "Salamence, come back!"
"What on Earth are you doing?", a voice said behind me. I turned around. Behind me, two joggers were standing. I had been careless, hadn't checked around the bend for people before I started yelling. And now, here I stood, dressed as a trainer, with a Poké Ball in my hand. To make matters even worse, the two who were standing there looking at me were Miley and Emily.
"Freak", Miley muttered. Emily said nothing, but the way she looked at me made me feel wiltered inside.
"Let's go", Miley said.
"I'll catch up with you", Emily answered coldly. She waited until Miley had cleared the bend before she started speaking, with a trembling voice:
"What are you doing?", she said. "I had heard the stories, but I thought you were normal! I...I... You better have a good explanation for acting this childish. Now!"
"I..." I muttered, my mouth was dry as sandpaper. "I can't tell you"
"You can't!? Lost your mind, have you?!" She started crying. "Listen. I didn't believe you were that much into it. I know you have gone to psychiatrist and stuff, but I didn't think... Please realise, Pokémon aren't...." She stopped, looking at something over my shoulder. I turned around. Something was flying straight towards us. A dragon, mostly blue, with a white underbelly and red wings. It head looked like a star from this side, six spikes were protruding from the back of its face. Its long tail was flapping from side to side, like a wagging dog. Salamence slowed down, then landed a few meters beside us. It turned towards me, bowed down, and sniffed at my face, like a dog. It was about as big as a large car, and nearly two and a half meter tall with his neck stretched out. The tips of the halberd-shaped wings were about four meters apart. I gave it a short hug, to demonstrate that it wasn't dangerous. Emily was speechless.
"Please... this isn't... oh..."
"It's not dangerous", I said. Salamence yawned, showing fangs larger than a man's thumb. Emily took a few steps backwards.
"Am I dreaming?"
"Nope, I'm afraid", I said, trying a smile. "If anything, this is my dream. Or rather, a product of it". She looked puzzled.
"Never mind", I said quickly. Then, in a more serious tone: "How much can I trust you?"
"I'm... not sure...", she answered. "What is the alternatives to not telling anyone?"
"Well, then I'd have to subdue you and get someone to erase your memories. Much less trouble for you, but I don't know if I'd be able to do that to you"
"Are there more of them?"
I sighed. "Ninety or so. I kinda had a mass outbreak last night"
"So the school..."
I felt really embarrassed. "Yes, unfortunately. On the bright side, they are incapable of killing anyone. Just knocking them out for... well, a few months." She was shocked.
"There are ways to revive them before that, though. No harm done."
"I don't want to have anything to do with this, I'm sorry", she said bluntly. "I... I just don't want to... play... with those... things." She waved a hand at Salamence.
"Just keep me out of this, OK?"
"If you don't tell anyone, then OK"
"What if I do?"
"I don't know. I like you too much to punish you for it, but it would put me into a lot of trouble. And if any authorities come to claim them, I'll happily fight them for it. And trust me, that would cause a lot of unneccessary damage"
She nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face, but she didn't say anything.
"And sorry if this sounds a bit childish, but the Poké Balls are voice activated. Salamence, come back."
Emily blinked a few times as Salamence disappeared into a cloud of red light, that flew back into the ball. Then we heard Miley shout from somewhere around the next bend.
"See you at school tomorrow, then?", I asked.
"Bye", she said stiffly, then ran off.
I put the Poké Ball back into my pocket, and started to walk back to Tyranitar. Whatever it was between Emily and me... it really was balancing on a knife's edge.