For the purposes of both personal and corperate confidentiality, I am required by law to state that, while the places in this fictional collection are REAL, the events, procedures and/or people taking place, used and/or involved are fictional and bear no resemblance to real life, living persons or operating companies, systems or procedures.

To abide by the FF upload rules - all characters are fictional, and property of their respective owners (Namely Pokemon, property of Nintendo / Gamefreak).

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is dead freaky, unintentional, and purely coincidental.

Dinnington, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
3rd January 2014, 10:53.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Mac screamed, as he hurled the controller across the room and into the sofa for the 5th time in an hour.

"HOW ARE YOU EVEN MOVING AROUND!? YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THUMBS!". That sentence didn't actually make a lot of sense without context.

The 40" TV screen Mac was sat in front of was split horizontally, with "DEFEATED" on the top half in red letters, and on the bottom half, "VICTORY" in green letters. The score was in the middle, and showed 200-7500. It was the score screen for an aged but still popular first person shooter. It was also the 5th time that Mac had been beaten in the hour. Considering before this losing streak he'd failed to be bested, he was understandably confused.

"Uh... I don't need them" was the silent reply to Mac's question.

Mac looked at his opponent. This was by far the weirdest opponent he'd actually ever played. For starters, it wasn't human (although he had suspected that quite a few of his online opponents weren't human). He didn't know 'what' it was either. He'd say it was some kind of bird, except for the fact that (as far as he knew), birds didn't understand English This 'bird' couldn't speak either, not properly. But it was able to do a thing it called 'telepathy', which it said projected thoughts into the mind of the person it is 'speaking' to. Which was majorly wierd.

And if it WAS a bird, which he was increasingly suspecting it wasn't, it's a VERY big bird.

The living room they were sitting was normally quite sizable. You could fit 4 people in front of the TV and have an online deathmatch no problem, as well as space behind for spectators or parents. But with this opponent, there was enough room for Mac and 'it', and nothing else. Not even a packet of Doritos.

Mac continued to stare at the bird. It had wings that were about 0.8 meters long each, in a very pointy triangle shape, with two much smaller triangles sticking out towards it's back near the ends. The wings jutted out from the top of the thing's body, which was about half a meter wide all the way round. Just after the wings, the front of it tapered down to a long thin neck, which ended in a pointed head. The head was a pointed oval shape, on the top a set of yellow eyes either side. Two ears pointed upwards either side just behind its eyes. The most intimidating feature was the things mouth, which had an array of super sharp teeth on the top and bottom. The 'thing' wasn't showing them right now though. The bottom of it's head where the mouth was was resting on the top of the pillows it was lying on.

The whole thing was covered in feathers, though you'd only notice the fact they were feathers close up. They formed an interesting pattern: The wings were deep red, the front of the body was white but the back and chest was red, the two separated by a series of smooth lines. The neck and head were mostly white, except for an oval of red (with a white oval in the middle of it) on it's head, near the eyes.

On its red chest that it was currently laying on, there was a blue triangle with rounded edges.

"Ugh, I'm NOT a bird" the thing projected into Mac's head.

"Birds flap their wings to fly, and does it look like I do that?"

Mac shook his head like he was a dog with wet hair trying to dry itself. Only Mac was a human, with confusing thoughts, trying to clear them.

He'd dodged around the point long enough, at the end of the day. You didn't steal something entirely new from the MOD, just to play call of duty with it. Although he wasn't quite sure what else he was supposed to do. So he'd given it a controller, laid it down in front of the TV and tried to think what to actually DO with it, while also playing the game. But so far nothing came to mind.

It was time to just ask the thing was it was. Talking to it was awkward: It couldn't speak English out-loud - just make an 'nyu' noise - but it could understand it, even if it did look like it wasn't listening. Mac looked at it's head and spoke. "Right. So if your not a bird, what ARE you? And why were the MOD keeping you locked up?"

The reply was telepathic, and appeared in Mac's head. "Right, finally! I was waiting for you to ask, although I'm surprised you haven't heard of me."

Mac made a 'get on with it' face.

Latias beamed the facts through to Mac's brain.

"I am a Latias. A Latias is a type of dragon. Do you have dragons here?"

Mac nodded. He'd played Skyrim and knew what myths said they were like. Now the 'Latias' mentions it, it does look a bit dragon-ish...

"Good, right. So we're all part of our own set of animals, called Pokemon. You don't seem to have many around here. Okay?"

Mac nodded again.

"So. I am - what the people where I lived called - a legendary pokemon. Normally their are thousands of each pokemon, but because I'm legendary, there is only one of me. I have a longer lifespan than the other pokemon by about 900 years as well."

Mac thought there was only one of it anyway, but if what he was hearing was true, there were more things like it, and thousands of each of those. All existing in a place he'd not ever heard of. Perhaps the thing was brain-damaged, because no way could a place like that be real and Mac not know about it.

"The legend I'm involved in includes my brother, who is a Latios. I'm his sister, and we look almost the same except he's blue where I'm red. We call each other by the name of our species, since there's only one of each of us. So I'm not an 'it', I'm a 'Latias'. And you can call me 'Latias'"

There was a silence while Mac absorbed all the information she was firing at him, a feat equal to that of reconstructing the houses of parliament from a children's drawing. If what she was saying was true, almost everything he knew about the world was wrong. Then again, this thing was beaming thoughts into his head. Not exactly on 'normal earth'. Eventually, he spoke up.

"Oh...Kay..?" Mac said slowly. Apparently the 'Latias' had a gender as well as family, which was a bit weird. And if that was the case...

"But why were the MOD kee-" Mac started, only to be cut off by Latias flying up off the floor and rotating around to face the wall with the sofa next to it, letting out a high pitched cry, closely followed by a psychic translation. "WHAT'S THAT NOISE?".

"What noise? I can't he-"

"Behind the sofa! Squeeking!" Latias replied, as she flew over to the sofa and started trying to wedge her nose (though Mac thought it was more like a snout) behind it, knocking over a few things from the coffee table on the side with it's over sized wings in the process. A glass and coaster went flying, the glass not breaking by the impact with the ground, but the falling coaster landing on it.

"STOP! YOU'RE WREAKING THE HOUSE!"

Latias was too occupied with getting to the squeaking though, and all the time just tried to force her head between the wall and the sofa to separate the two and reach the noise, all the time mumbling in her native tongue. "Squeaking. Got to find it. Find it. Food? Danger? Find it. Find It. Find..."

After watching this for a few seconds, Mac realized that Latias was incapable of moving the sofa from that angle and wasn't going to stop until she's reached whatever she was hearing. Mac walked over to the sofa, and - ducking to avoid Latias' rear end, which had two frantically moving flippers on it - pulled the sofa away from the wall.

With a squeal of triumph, Latias dove behind the sofa. After some thrashing around, she backed away, clutching something in her mouth.

The ceiling was just high enough for Latias to float vertically, chest with the blue triangle forward and facing Mac, though she had to duck slightly. She presented her mouth to Mac, before psychicing a two words across. "Ratatta. Pokemon."

Mac was confused, that wasn't a 'pokemon' as she was calling it. It was just a common rat. "No, not a pokemon. Normal animal. A Mouse."

"No, Ratatta. It's a Pokemon."

Said animal was thrashing about in Latias' mouth, but it only resulted in itself impaling itself on the several rows of teeth. Blood almost as red as Latias' feathers started to leak from the many punctures in its fragile skin. Mac wasn't particularly fazed by this: He used to have cats that would frequently bring in dead/decapitated/limbless-but-alive birds, rabbits and rats.

"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? It's a snack now." Was Latias' psychic response to Mac, before crunching down on the rodent, stopping it's futile struggles, before chewing twice and swallowing.

Mac was slightly disturbed by this, however. It was the first thing he knew that could speak that ate rats. And those teeth looked incredibly sharp. He made a mental note not to get on Latias' bad side.

There was a moment of awkward silence, penetrated only by the sound of Latias' stomach grumbling as it dissolved the ex-rat's soft tissue and bones.

Latias was still looking at Mac and he felt desperately inclined to say something.

"So you're a carnivore?" He asked. Terrible question, but it broke the silence.

"Does that mean 'eats meat'? Then Yes. But I eat berries and leaves too. I'm hungry. Do you have any?" she asked him, telepathically. She added a head tilt and a smile to this, making her look a lot cuter than the animal killing dragon from a few seconds ago.

"Berries? Er... I think so. Wait here...", and with that Mac fled out of a door and into the kitchen, leaving Latias temporarily unsupervised in the living room.

The house was not as luxurious as her previous house. All the doorways are a lot smaller, the ceiling a lot lower and the rooms more cramped. That said, it was still better than her cell at the Team Rocket HQ, and for that (at least) she was thankful.

That also said, the house was completely unsuited to her. The previous house had dozens of little trinkets which made being a dragon easier. She knew what each thing in the room did.

But here... All sorts of things that were complete unknowns. Right now she was floating horizontally, having just watched Mac leave and go to the kitchen. Mac was very polite, but a bit... weird. Most people who broke into the Team Rocket HQ to rescue a legendary pokemon would do something with it. But so far all he'd done was take her to his house, cover her in a blanket downstairs, before going to sleep for many hours, then playing the game on the TV with her when he got up. No Training. No Battling. He hadn't even captured her - another thing she was glad for.

Mac came back, holding a thin, see-thru plastic tub, piled about half full with a red fruit. Latias hadn't seen the fruit before and zoomed forward for a closer look, startling Mac. She dipped her snout into the box and breathed in, inhaling the smell and all the information that came with it.

It smelled kind-of like a rawst berry, but a lot sweeter. It was fresh, removed from it's source no more than 6 days ago, and kept well in a dry and cold environment the entire time. She couldn't smell anything unusual - defiantly nothing poisonous - aside from a high level of soil, meaning he probably hadn't washed them, but hey, she just ate a Rattata. Soil wasn't going to kill her.

"They're strawberries" Mac said, arms beginning to strain as Latias started pushing against the box with her snout. Latias gave out a kind of positive sounding noise in response. At least, it sounded positive. It was a kind of cooing noise that started low and ended high. He guessed that meant that they were okay. It must have, because the next thing he knew, Latias was munching on the red berries right out of the box.

"L... Latias? Can I put this down somewhere first? It's hurting my arms..." Mac asked.

"Oh, Sure!" Latias replied in her Lati voice which Mac couldn't understand, swooping down back onto the pile of pillows laid out on the floor, facing the TV.

Mac wasn't quite sure what this meant. Did she take his comment as a "No"? Had she changed her mind and wanted to watch TV instead (Did she even know what a TV could do)? Or was she moving to somewhere he could put the strawberries down for her to eat?

He gambled on the latter, placing the box of strawberries down in front of her. The moment he did, she started gorging on the fruit in the box. Because her mouth was on the underside of her snout, she could still look up at him as she ate. She looked at him for a brief few seconds before shutting her eyes and continuing with her snack. Mac didn't know why, but it looked like shutting her eyes while she ate was a habitual thing. She also made a series of cute little noises while she ate as well.

"So... Are they Okay?" Mac asked.

"Mmm... Yeah!". The voice appeared in his head, but Latias was still eating.

"Err... do you want anything to drink? What do you drink anyway?". It would just be his luck if dragons turned out to be high-maintenance.

"Well... The stuff from my kills, or the water from the lake, normally. But the juice in these berries is good too... I'm fine thanks..."

Mac sat on a nearby armchair and watched her eat the strawberries. The music from the game was still going quietly in the background, but it was barely audible over his own thoughts.

His mum was on holiday, but she'd be back in a week. How he explained the presence of the mythical creature in the living room, god only knew. He didn't even begin to think how to persuade her to let him keep her. Latias was quite nice too. Cute. Not attractive, no (something about her appearance made her look a bit... fat). But cute, in the same way a cat playing with some string was cute.

Blatantly, keeping 'her' was not an option. Then again, he didn't really want to see her go. And besides, how would he continue his life knowing that possibly thousands more things like her, these 'pokemon', existed? It FLEW without flapping its wings or anything. How that worked he didn't even-

"It's Psychic" Latias said in in head. He hadn't said anything aloud, so it must have somehow read his thoughts.

"Yes, Being psychic means I can also read your thoughts. So keep them clean". Mac didn't know why, but he had the feeling that she 'said' this with a telepathic smile.

"The reason I can float without moving my wings is because we float using psychic." Latias projected into his thoughts, adding a footnote. "'We' being me and my brother."

Mac was still sat on the armchair. He knew what 'Psychic' was, but had dismissed it as a physical impossibility. There was no way matter could be manipulated by a force generated by neural pathways. But here was this 'thing', projecting thoughts into his head, reading his thoughts and claiming it could levitate with 'psychic'. The only other possible explanation to this actually being real, was that the military successfully captured him and put him on LSD until his eventual death sentence. Or he was going crazy.

The latter was increasingly becoming more likely, as Latias finished the last of the strawberries, and the Xbox controller seemingly lifted itself and flew towards her, stopping just short of what Mac assumed was her snout.

The joysticks appeared to manipulate themselves and started to move around. Latias didn't even blink at this. Mac blinked at least 7 times in under a second.

"That's... That... That's you... Doing that?" Mac just about managed to stammer out-loud.

Latias realized Mac was not used to the whole psychic thing, and stopped her demonstration using the controller. The menu on the screen didn't make sense anyway.

"Well yeah, how do you think I played the game with you in the first place?"

She was right. Mac was pretty stupid not to notice it when they played the game.

"That's what psychic pokemon - me and my brother included - can do. Why?"

Mac got up from his chair. It wasn't the longest thinking session ever. In fact, for the judgment he was about to make, it was bordering on a stupid amount of time to think.

"Right." He stood in front of the TV, demanding Latias' full attention. After this prompt, Latias also got up from the floor and faced him. She still had berry juice and a bit of blood on her feathers around her mouth, but Mac wasn't about to point that out.

"So, You're a 'pokemon', which is essentially an animal. Does that mean you have a certain, like, habitat?" He asked.

Latias nodded her head.

"So surely the best thing to do would be to return you to your habitat? Because from where I am, if you remove something from it's habitat, it can't survive." Mac said matter-of-factly. Latias' response was entirely psychic.

"Well, Actually, I'm very resilient and it'd take extreme cold to kill me. Food isn't really a problem, you know?" Mac nodded. It looked like Latias ate what she wanted, when she wanted and he did not want to become a food source himself. "But I do have someone who normally looks after me, like a carer. And my brother. I was waiting for you to ask, really. I want to go back to them". Her voice in his head sounded longing.

Mac nearly exploded, after he got his head around what Latias just said. "YOU HAVE AN OWNER!?". If she did have an owner, he would HAVE to return her. But on the other hand, she didn't seem to be like some kind of pet, or indeed the kind of thing that would allow itself to be kept as a pet. And a brother too! She'd said that before, but she had an owner that looked after both? Family..?

"Not so loud, I have very sensitive ears!". Mac rolled his eyes. "And yes. I have a kind-of owner. Her name is Bianca, and she's a human, like you. She looks after us: makes sure we get enough food, that kind of thing. But we're not like pets or anything. She lets us do whatever: we could leave if we wanted to. But she's so nice we stay."

Mac thought about this: Latias was obviously of some value. Otherwise why were the military after her? And she obviously had a tight bond with her owner. The reward for returning her could be very handsome. Giving her back to the military, on the other hand, would be suicide - they would just kill him for stealing her in the first place. He knew too much (yet understood so little. How poetic.) And her owner was Human! So humans have known about her existence!

Latias must have been reading his thoughts yet again.

"Look. Mac?". Mac nodded. "I don't understand all of this. But people here want you dead, right? You rescued me from Team Rocket, so in return, I'll rescue you from whoever wants to kill you. If you help me back to my home, I'll make sure you can stay. Bianca won't mind. I'm pretty sure my brother would be grateful too."

Latias was floating there, unchanged. Mac, on the other hand was shivering. He had so many decisions to make, it was affecting his brain and he couldn't hold still. Like the ultimate sugar rush.

The silence lasted too long. Mac had to say something, but he couldn't decide on weather he was going to stay/go with Latias just yet.

"Where do you even live? Where is your owner? Could you show me on a map?" He asked aloud.

Latias replied instantly. "Me and my brother live in a secret garden in a town called alto-mare, which is also an island. Surely you've heard of it? It's old, and has canals instead of streets. There are boat races, a few museums? It has streets, actually but not many. People get around by boat because it's made up of loads of islands connected by small canals? It's called al-"

"That's VENICE!" Mac cried. He'd never been, but his dad had once. Although he'd never mentioned pokemon or legendarily or a secret garden.

Latias watched as Mac ran out of the room, sprouting some nonsense about a place called Venice. She hoped this person could help her get home. She realized she missed Bianca. And her brother. So much. The new stuff in this place was a distraction initially, but now she thought about it... She missed them all...

It'd had been about a week since she'd seen either of them - not an extended amount of time. But she was in an unknown place, with no other pokemon to talk to, and she didn't know the way home. For some reason, she couldn't connect with Latios. Perhaps they were too far apart. Or perhaps something bad had happened to him.

Latias hoped they were okay.

Perhaps Latios was looking for her even now.

Mac rushed back in the room, holding a large folded piece of paper with "ATLAS" written across the side Latias assumed was the front. She had to admit, it looked like she was in capable hands.

"You are from earth, right?" Mac asked. Hoped. If she wasn't, they were sunk. He could hardly present something he'd stolen from the military to NASA for them to send into space at great cost. No, they'd just dissect her. Mac shuddered at the thought and was glad when Latias gave a positive sounding coo and a nod of her head.

Mac indicated to Latias the atlas. "This is a map of earth. Do you know what your country looks like?"

Another nod from Latias.

"Good." Mac laid the folded piece of paper out on the floor, before unfolding it, revealing a map that was 2 meters by 3, with all the countries in the world mapped out, labeled and colored. Major rivers were in blue, as well as the entire sea.

Mac leaned across the map, zooming in on a place near Italy, as Latias flew above him to get a better look.

"Does your country look like this?" Mac asked as he pointed to a little island called venice, hoping that the answer would be yes.

Latias gave a disappointed kind of sound. "No. Definitely not what any part of home looked like." Mac frowned. This was going to be more difficult than expected.

"Actually..This doesn't look like what I've been shown earth is like at all."

Mac nearly sobbed. If she wasn't from this earth, he was as good as dead. But she must be: she can understand English, and her owner was a human! But where on earth - quite literally - was she from?

He looked at the next possible location, which was really the only possible one where something like Latias could exist without him knowing.

The place printed on the side of the truck. The place that was apparently wiped out after some sort of biological incident. He scanned across the map to look at the place that he knew would be replaced with "N. KOREA" in white, with a black splodge where the country should be. Sure enough, a large black box was covering a large section of the map just below China. He looked across to the info panel.

"IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE QUARANTINE LAW 1502, THIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN OMITTED. FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, THIS COUNTRY DOES NOT EXIST." Was the only advice the info panel gave. Mac had learnt about the Biological Mutation Quarantine law (or the 'BMQ') in history. Almost 500 years ago, there was an international incident, and, long story short, all information in and out of the country was blocked, due to some kind of super-virus. The place was declared a wasteland and generally forgotten about. People couldn't get in or out, removed from history, and anyone trying to find anything out about it was killed, apparently not only the Chinese government, but also some force inside the country.

But it was the only place Latias could have come from. A thought occurred to Mac. What if this country, North Korea, had tonnes of pokemon? But then a virus came about and started killing them off, so they banned everything coming in or out, stopping the virus getting to any more 'pokemon' there? It was a long shot, a leap of imagination. But it was the only thing he had.

Latias stepped into help. "Er... this may be useful... The province Alto Mare belongs to is called Hoenn?"

Mac shot up. Hoenn? HOENN!? He dug frantically into his pocket, pulling out a moderaty high tech phone. He opened up google and typed out a search as fast as he could without making a mistake. "HOENN BMQ".

The moment the page loaded, he clicked on the Wikipedia link and scanned down the first chaper, the summery.

"...lished by the North Korean government, in the capital province of Hoenn, in response to a still unknown medical threat on their population..."

He was shivering again. If the two Hoenns were the same, he had not just only found out where Latias was from, but also what the Quarantine law was hiding.

He ran another search, this time for "Hoenn" on Google maps. Only one result was found, and it was posted in the centre of the black box that represented North Korea. The info box just gave the same information on the establishment of quarantine law as Wikipedia.

Only one Hoenn on earth. And Latias was from it. He could take her back home. He could live there, with her, and her owner, and all the other 'pokemon'. He could actually leave.

He had no idea how to get into this place, this country that had been isolated and cordoned off nearly 500 years ago. But if he could: No one would be after him. He would be a hero for returning a 'legendary'. He could start over again. The thourght was ever so tempting.

But it would mean leaving all his family and friends behind...

He dodged around the issue again, it was starting to become a habit of his. He turned around to look Latias in the eyes from no more than 20cm away. He was startled by how close she was without him hearing, but recovered quickly.

"Okay. I know what country you're from now. Once we get in there, do you think you could find your way home? I don't have any maps of that place here."

Latias thought for a second before replying. "Erm... Yeah, I suppose, if we manage to sneak into a pokemon centre and get a map which tells us where we are in relation to where Alto Mare is..."

Mac was concerned about the way she thought "sneak". And confused about what a 'pokemon centre' was. Could you buy them?

"Why do we have to sneak in? Can't we just ask for one?"

Latias returned him a look of shock. "No! Well, I can't. You can, I suppose. But I've not been captured, and I'm legendary. So if I was there we'd be surrounded by eager trainers in no time!" her voice said in his head, sounding slightly indignant.

"Wait! Captured? Trainers? What?" Mac asked, a look of confusion on his face.

Latias realized it was going to be difficult to explain to him, as he apparently knew nothing about pokemon. It WAS a strange place she'd ended up in...

"Right. Wild pokemon are pokemon that haven't been captured. Being captured means that the person who captures you - the trainer - is your master and you must obay them, weather they use you in fights or not".

Latias detected the jolt of surprise from Mac and explained, as he probably would be shocked by the prospect of humans encouraging animals to fight. Or at least, in his world. "Yes, Trainers fight their pokemon against each other. We enjoy it, so it's okay, but since I'm a legendary I want to stay free to do as I wish. Understand?"

Mac gave a nod, though it was obvious he didn't fully understand. He'd find out in due coarse though, Latias suspected.

Just as Mac was thinking how they were actually going to get to Korea, Latias flew back from the map and shrieked. "The door! people! Coming in the house!"

Mac hesitated - what was she on about? Latias heard his thoughts and explained telepathically.

"Someone is opening the front door! They feel bad!". Mac realized almost too late, and thought for a few milliseconds before running into the hallway.

It couldn't be his mum, she was a hundred miles away. All his friends would have knocked first. The same went for his dad. 'They feel bad'?

He opened the door into the hallway and looked towards the doorway.

Stood there were 3 men, all in black combat gear. They had pistols in holsters around their belts, and the two at the back were cradling guns Mac recognized as standard British Special Forces MP5s with flashlight attachment, metal sight and rubber grip. They were also wearing helmets with flip-down visors, but they were up at the moment. They had bullet proof vests on and radios on the straps, and all looked like they were straight out of the movies.

The lead one spotted Mac and drew his pistol and aimed it at Mac almost so fast that he didn't see him do it. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE."

Mac realized who they were with a sickening feeling. Military Police. After Latias.

Firstly, okay, yeah, I know that Hoenn is actually in Japan, but bear with me, pretend that Hoenn doesn't exist. The plot makes much more sense if you ignore that fact.

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