I had this weird dream…
… Spheres that were red on the top and white on the bottom…
… EVOs. Strange, powerful EVOs…
… I did a mental check. I hadn't been gassed…
… So, I wondered…
… What are you dreaming, Rex?
Nanite Free
GR refs – Lightning EVO fight (ep Exposed) Beverly Holiday (ep A Family Holiday)
Pkmn ref – Disintegration (movie The Rise of Darkrai)
Chapter 1: Dreams
Rex's view
I was asleep in Providence base. No biggie, just your usual day bashing and curing EVOs, hour-long checkups and never-ending pranks from your talking EVO monkey sidekick really drain your energy.
...And make you forget any dreams you had.
I woke up to said monkey poking my back. "Hey, chief. Get up."
I buried my head under my pillow. "Go away, Bobo..."
I heard him shift his weight. "What if I told you it was ten minutes into a debriefing?"
Debriefing! I leapt out of bed, throwing him onto the floor ("Sorry!"), whipped on my jacket and staggered into the hallways. My Rex Ride build was the fastest – and, for other people, safest with my drunken stagger – way to go. I probably got there in under thirty seconds that way – only to be met by Six, who was glaring, as usual, because I was late, as usual. He didn't say anything, just motioned for me to sit down. I slunk into my seat.
"... and numerous EVOs have been found and neutralised here, here and here. Three agents from teams Epsilon and Gamma respectively were lost to this threat here..." I zoned out as Captain Calan drawled in his southern accent about the most recent EVO outbreaks and Providence's agents' status.
"Rex." White's voice rang out through the room and I sat bolt upright. "What did I just say?"
I drew a blank and managed a small guilty snicker.
White rolled his eyes. "An outbreak of two Level One EVOs has occurred in Tokyo. Your job is to neutralise it. White out." The screen went blank. Heh, whiteout, I thought, and ran to the hangar.
The jump jet hung suspended in the air two kilometres above Tokyo. It was easy to see where the EVOs were – a blazing fire covered half a city block. I could only pray that everyone was safe. Six stood beside me, surveying the scene. He unsheathed a magna blade, stood on his hoverboard and quipped "Come on, kid." I lowered my goggles over my eyes and followed him into very thin air.
The freefall was exhilarating as I reached terminal velocity. I couldn't stop a "Woo-hoo!", but it was whipped away by the rushing air. I turned my head – Six was beside me, low to the board, which was jetting its own tiny spurts of air to stabilise itself. I flipped a couple of somersaults, just for the extra rush.
Half a minute later I generated the Boogie pack to stabilise my flight for the last half a kilometre – but I didn't slow down. The ground rushed up so fast; I pulled out – building! Dodge! Another building! Dodge again! I pulled up a second time and shot vertically until I stopped moving, then turned around and flew straight to the scene.
The EVOs gave me a sense of familiarity. I didn't know why. One was a yeti that was taller than Six, yellow with black stripes. It had two thin, black tails coming out its back, and shot electricity everywhere. The other one was insane. It was like a really, really big weasel as tall as me, except it had fire shooting from its shoulder blades, like some flaming collar.
The instant I was about to land, Holiday proclaimed over my earpiece "Rex! These EVOs are giving off a different biometrics reading to normal EVOs. Be careful, I don't know what-"
"Relax, Doc!" I interrupted. "I must've fought EVOs a million times by now!" I dropped into the brawl.
The first one to see me was the weasel, and it dashed over, collar flaring up. Almost on instinct the Boogie Pack shrank away to be replaced by those great big cubes of metal I love. Swinging a punch with my Smack Hands, I caught the EVO in the stomach and it bounced into a car from the force of its momentum plus my attack. The car crumpled like paper.
From the corner of my eye, I saw six fending off the yellow yeti with a little trouble – his magnetic swords were pulling electricity towards him, and he had to keep jumping around. To add to that, yellow was swinging punches crackling with a halo of lightning. I needed to give Six a diversion.
I rushed the yeti, shouting "Hey, yellow!" It turned around to be met with a fist to the face. The diversion turned sour as I felt the first spark and tried to pull away, but it sent a bolt of lightning through the metal hand and into my body before I could move. Not that I hadn't been electrocuted before, but never like this. I heard a terrible scream and realised later... it was mine.
Suddenly, the EVO roared and the pain abruptly stopped. I was barely aware of one of Six's katanas wedged into yellow's arm, a bit more aware of him dragging me by the armpits to a side street. He lay me down on the pavement and called Holiday over the comlink.
I shifted my bleary vision to the EVOs. The weasel was up again and they were fighting again like nothing had happened, but yellow had pulled the sword out of its arm and now had a bleeding gash which was slowly turning its arm crimson. Over it all, there was the sound of gunfire, the crackling of electricity, the acrid smell of burning hair and the meaningless chatter of my two parent figures over the com.
When I shifted my vision back to the main street, I saw what no-one else did.
The fire and lightning flared suddenly and all the Providence agents ducked for cover. Someone screamed. Yellow and Weasel froze, then disintegrated into pinkish purple flecks that floated up and vanished. Six had ducked down. I stared at the spot. Someone issued the order to search for the EVOs.
I couldn't explain it, but I knew the search would be useless.
Holiday forced yet another plastic cup of some Powerade kind of drink into my hand, telling me to have it. I glanced at the seven other cups on the examination table. Bobo snickered. I downed the drink, crushed the cup in my hand and threw it at his head. His fez got knocked off. "Why do I even need all these drinks?" I asked. "My nanites'll probably take care of any damage."
Holiday turned to face me. "If the electricity burst shorted out your nanites, you'll still need some sort of energy to help your body fix itself."
Bobo smirked, yawned and slunk out of the room, muttering something about pizza. Holiday looked back to her clipboard. There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. I finally broke it 'cuz I'd suddenly remembered my dream from the night before. "Hey Doc, do you believe in seeing the future and psychics and all that stuff?"
She looked confused. "Where did that come from?"
I thought about the EVOs I'd fought earlier that day and shrugged. "Just wondering."
She put the clipboard onto the table. "Science and logic disproves it, but there have been many people to demonstrate – to certain extents – power over their bodies, to set things on fire and move objects with their minds. I'm pretty neutral on that subject, so I don't know."
I nodded and kicked the floor half-heartedly. "What about déjà vu?"
She smiled. "Definitely happened to me before."
I scratched my chin. "Well what if I told you I dreamt about yellow and weasel EVOs and more, except they were covered in plants and water and ice and rock and they were beating the crap out of each other with faceless people standing on the side telling them what to do?"
She visibly paled. "I... I don't know, Rex. It was probably just that... a dream." It was an uncertain comment. She'd said she'd had déjà vu before, so why was she freaking out? Holiday abruptly shoved another cup of drink into my hand and shooed me out of the lab. Bobo was waiting outside with Beverly. She smiled and waved hi. Bev was Doc's little sister on relative terms – she was my age.
"How'd it go, chief?"
I looked down at Bobo. "It went okay... but it's none of your business." I strode past the two of them and walked to my room. Neither Bobo or Beverly followed me.
I barely looked at the tiny digital clock's 9:34pm inset in the wall before I fell asleep.
… That dream again…
… Is it haunting me? ...
… A red bug EVO…
… A blue turtle EVO…
… A strange, green-and-white humanoid EVO…
… A mountain…
… What is this?
TOKYO. THE LAND OF POKEMON. LOL
I'm finally beginning to update these first three chapters! xD (You'll see why if you look at the next two) Just so this chapter makes more sense and more action is added, really. At 1507 words, It's a bit short (493 words short of my set minimum goshdarnit LOL!) but I couldn't think of anything else to flesh it out with x_x Removed the SkS (The Spiritkeeper's Secret, see my profile) ref in the 'EVO fight' To anyone who remembers them, they were actually Liko and another character who'll be introduced halfway through the story. Not telling who. ^_^ Expect the next chapter rewrite in one week (hopefully)!
LAST THING – thanks for sticking with me while I'm fixing and editing, guys. I promise after this I'll start writing the actual plotted story XD
~SK