Destinies Bound Overwrite

By GameGuardian2x

Author's notes

Previous (before November 2002) readers of this fic will find that the first two chapters have been completely overhauled. This is because of two reasons:

First of all, the non-chronological format was confusing me. It's never good when a fic confuses it's own writer.

Secondly, the original tone of the fic was far more dark. Thanks to many joke contributions by my esteemed friends, the fic has become somewhat lighter in vein, and some of the darker themes have been reassigned to a future fic, tentatively named 'Heart of the Storm.' Some of the Dark themes however, remain.

String 2: Links

First Chord: Scatterings

You cannot escape your destiny, but you can meet it on your own terms.

"Wow, Chris, you really have an Ampharos?" Ming touched the Pokeball carefully, as if it might snap at him any second.

"Yep. I got it in a trade for a Pichu." Chris grinned uneasily at his friend. Ming desperately wanted to be a Trainer, but his dad refused to sigh the release form that would let him start training at 10 instead of twelve. Chris sometimes got the impression that his friend was jealous.

"Can I see?"

"Well, alright. Go Rath!"

"Amph!" Chris's new Ampharos popped out of its Pokeball.

"Cool," Ming chortled. "Can you use it to Thunderwave my sister?"

"No."

"But she's really annoying!"

"No!"

The young boy ran through the woods. Despite his haste, he kept an eye on the foliage around him. Jason was out there somewhere, and Brandon was determined to get to the goal before him. His eyes swept over one particular patch of grassless soil. He smiled to himself. It was a clever trap, but it would take more than that too fool him. He launched himself at a nearby tree, and started climbing up. Domino could place as many land mines as she wanted. They would do her no good if her target was in the treetops.

Craig patiently recalibrated the fickle machine as Sydney busied herself with checking the computers for glitches. Craig let out a sigh. What the boss wanted of him was quite impossible. There was no way to imbue a person with psychic powers; they had to be born with them. But one did not argue with Giovanni. The machine beeped, indicating a successful self-test, and Craig returned it to it's shelf. "Syd, give me a test run on S-21"

The machine sputtered and promptly died. Craig sighed again. "Well, that didn't work. So much for the best laboratory in Indigo."

Joy tugged at her mother's elbow. "Mom, can I go with you now? I'm ten now, you said I could go with you to work when I turned ten."

Joy Burke turned to look at her daughter, Joy Cario. Despite the family genes, and the league-designed "conformity" drugs, Cario had rich black hair rather than the usual reddish shade. "Sure, honey, just dye your hair, and try to stay out of sight, OK?"

"Wow, thanks mom!" Cario was already smearing ARColor Hair Shade into her hair. A fairly recent innovation, ARColor created a relatively thick, but temporary coating over one's hair, rather than actually dying it. This allowed dark haired individuals to avoid the rather painful bleaching process, and doubled as hair gel as well. Unfortunately, ARColor was only good for about 40 hours, after which it started to melt off rather messily. Burke made a mental note to remind her daughter to wash her hair when they got home.

Burke sighed as she stuffed her stethoscope into her bag. "Was I ever this eager?" She shook her head. She could only hope and pray. Soon, too soon, Joy would be on her own. By league rules, Joy was out of her custody at age fourteen. Zipping up her now fully packed bag, Burke placed it near the door and went to help her daughter with the hair shade.

Brandon jumped another tree. "Good thing these trees have thick branches." He paused for a moment. (Just to get his bearings; he wasn't tired or anything… ok, maybe he was.) With the characteristic luck that had always served him so well, Brandon realized that the next tree, the one he had been planning to jump to, was a trap. A slight crevice in the tree had been expanded, to allow the fitting of some sort of device. Well, it looked like Domino was wise to him. Brandon jumped down from his tree, and continued his journey on foot, now more cautiously. Just like Domino to be watching us and adding to the obstacles as we go along.

Ben hopped onto the rock and looked around. "All clear!" the little Charmander called.

"Good," Hydro the Squirtle said. "Let's get going then."

"Do you even know where we're going?" Zephyr the Bulbasaur asked unhappily. "We're just wandering in circles here. What we need is a plan."

"What can we do?" Hydro snapped.

"I know!" Ben cried. "We'll find trainers. As long as we have trainers as cover, it'll be much harder for those 'rocket scientist' to find us."

"That'll really work," Zephyr said sarcastically.

"Well I haven't seen you come up with a plan, Plant-girl."

"Excuse me! I'm a Grass type. Not plant. Grass!"

"Oh, brother," Hydro groaned.

Lisa slammed her palm on the disconnect button, severing the Vid-phone link to the place she had once called home. Her parents were still telling her to abandon her "wild dreams" and find a "Real Job." Strangely, they were not averse to plundering her Trainer Account, forcing her to open a separate account and do odd jobs to stay solvent. "Well daddy dear had better get off his lazy behind and find an honest job, because this is the last time he's using my winnings to buy liquor." Still fuming, she walked to the counter of the Pokecenter. The local Nurse Joy stopped dictating to her D-Mac, and came over. Lisa noticed that Joy was showing signs of age. "Due for retirement soon. That must have been her replacement I saw at the Delibird's Trainer Café earlier. They're all so similar… Some machine must roll them out."

"Can I help you?" Lisa marveled at how Joy managed a smile and somehow was able to sound at least mildly interested in Lisa's request. "If I had her Job, I'd be packing heat, and waving it around every time some spoiled rich brat complained about accommodations."

"Uhm, yeah, I'd like to remove all secondary users from my Trainer Account." Lisa forced herself to smile at Joy. "She probably needs a break even more than I do."

"Can I have some identification please?" Joy was already keying up the older league standard Pory-Net terminal. Lisa grimaced as she pulled out her old-style Pokedex. Most Trainers these days had Pokegears, but Lisa couldn't afford them, let alone advance models. The old model didn't seem to bother Joy at all, but them again, she too had an old model terminal. She merely turned the Pokedex over and held the scanner over the I.D. chip.

A moment later, the computer beeped. "Trainer Lisa Wu. Registry number 01450625. Current status: League Trainer, D-class"

Joy punched a few keys, and then turned the keypad to Lisa. "Password?" Wordlessly, Lisa entered it. Joy spun the pad back to her and entered the command. "Done" she announced, attempting to sound cheerful. "Will there be anything else?"

"No thank you ma'am." Lisa turned and headed for the trainer hostel section.

Brandon cut the line connecting the pressure pad below the fnce to whatever countermeasure Domino had rigged. He then slipped through underneath the wire as his Elekid held it taunt, careful to maintain the electric current. He smiled as he recalled the advice that had him muddying his uniform.

Flashback (One in every chapter, guaranteed… LOL just kidding)

(Warning! Starcraft Lingo)

The Dragoons ran with his Hydralisks in pursuit. Outnumbered 7 to 3, Chris had little recourse but to run. Of course, it was probably part of his strategy, but Brandon had 5 Mutalisks waiting for that contingency. It was no surprise when his Hydralisks started taking damage. Chris always covered his retreats.

Brandon smirked as his Overlord exposed Chris's Dark Templars. Ordering his Mutalisks to engage them while his Hydralisks retreated, he typed in a taunt. So much for the fast kill, Chris.

The next moment he yelped as the Templars again faded from view. "What the…" It took only a moment to realize what had transpired. Chris had used a Dark Archon to mind-control his Overlord. Brandon ordered his mutas to engage the Overlord, while his Hydralisks scrambled for cover in the form of another Overlord. Chris however, surprised him by, instead of retreating his Dark Archon as he usually did, ordering it to Maelstrom his mutas. One Mutalisk escaped the spell and proceeded to make the Dark Archon pay, but Chris's Dragoons chewed it apart and started on its companions.

Brandon checked his Hydras, but Chris had retreated his Dark Templars. The message Did you think I had only one back-up? flashed on the screen. Brandon ignored it as he rallied his three remaining mutas to retreat. Unfortunately, he got another one of them mind-controlled, as Chris had used the time to bring another Dark Archon on scene. This time the Dark Archon fled, and Brandon let his mutas kill the controlled one rather than pursue.

If there was only one trick to it, it'd be a pretty sad trap

Brandon glared at the message. Chris had him there.

End Flashback

Brandon pulled himself to a kneeling position. He gestured, and Paras moved forward. The small plant/bug type moved in intervals feeling the ground and sensing for burrowed security measures. Brandon gestured to Elekid, who retied the wires and joined him, following Paras at a crawl. "Pretty nasty trap. Pressure pad under the fence for fools who try to just sneak under it and both current and tension sensors on the wire. Chris would love it. Not that I'd ever tell him."

As you probably guessed, I used this chapter to introduce some of the secondary characters. I hope ya likes 'em, cuz they be back.

Review Please. Pretty please? Pretty please with Daikon and Peanuts on top?