All right, y'all here's chapter 2. I've posted this a lot sooner than I anticipated... At any rate, I'll now be updating every Friday.

Loki: God of Mischief

After Sara left, my mother decided to give me the third degree about my new "little friend." I could tell that she was even more excited that I'd made some friends than I was. She grilled me on my teachers, the other kids and what I did after school. Eventually, I got more than a little irritated with her and I ended up snapping at her.

I didn't feel too guilty about that, after all, she still had Rob to harass who had yet to return home and before she could get too defensive, one of the eevees decided to instigate a mass breakout. Of course, I got recruited to help track them all down. It took three hours the catch four eevee pups, but before we could, they ended up breaking three vases and left presents in a variety of sizes.

"So, when's this client of yours supposed to pick these guys up?" I asked irritably once we shut them all in separate kennels.

Mom sighed, "She was supposed to get them last week."

"Wait, she was from Hoenn? Does she know we've moved?" I asked.

"I told her when she dropped her two eevee off, and then I called the number she left with me. I think she just decided to abandon them all," Mom answered

"Didn't she leave a Trainer I.D. or something?"

"Apparently, it wasn't hers. Or if it was even real to begin with," my mother stated irritably.

"Then we're stuck with these guys."

"I'll find some place for them. Eevee are very popular as pets and battlers," Mom told me, "Besides, I thought you found them cute."

"Yeah, before that one," I pointed at a lighter colored pup, "decided to leave a few things in my room."

The pup in question only have me a big eyed look in response and despite my anger, I still found him cute. Though I wasn't about to admit it right now.

Mom looked at the eevee I indicated, "Well, that one's a bit of a handful. The others aren't as difficult as him."

I grunted in response. Honestly, I thought they were adorable until they were able to figure out how to get out of their little pen area and now I sort of just tolerate them.

Dad and Rob got home at about the same time and my mother soon grew distracted by asking him how his day went, but Rob didn't offer up much. The earlier eevee fiasco caused Mom to have to order out for tonight, so we had pizza. No one really had much to report. Rob and I don't enjoy telling out parents about the things we do and Dad had to do a tour of the Radio Tower; apparently it was boring. My father also doesn't particularly like the small fox-like dogs in our house so Mom and I didn't mention them.

All in all, this wasn't too bad of a start here in Johto. Of course, I wasn't about to mention this out loud, either. If I did, my mother would end up going into one of her, "Moms are always right," rants. She was the one that insisted that I would be the best suited here, though I have no idea why she would believe that.

As the weeks passed, I developed a bit of a routine. Go to school, spend the rest of the day with my friends, and then go home at whatever time my mom told me. I was actually beginning to act more like Rob, as he was hardly ever home either. Only difference is, he doesn't help at all with the pokémon Mom breeds when we are at home.

Just as I thought, my mother was able to find homes for all of the eevee except the little light tan one. He was just too wild for anybody to take him off our hands. At first, people thought the little shiny would be great in their homes, but as soon as anyone would try to take him, he'd turn into some sort of monster. He even peed on one lady.

Oddly enough, I was the only one that ended up liking him. Once we stopped trying to give him away, he even settled down a little. Now, he mostly has a bad habit of hiding and chewing on things. I was the one that named him Loki and Dad eventually assigned me to be his primary caregiver. Not only did that mean that I had to clean up after him, it also meant that I had to take him with me on the occasion that my parents got so tired of him that I'd have to take him out for his well being.

So, that's how I ended up in the park with my friends and an eevee with a behavioral problem. I actually liked it better here in the park than at the store. I've always liked spending some time outside and the park was way more peaceful than the bustling department store.

"You gonna use him for the Bug Catching Contest?" Connor pointed at Loki.

"Loki? No, I'd never get him to do any battle moves, let alone get him to help me catch something," I said.

"You can't get him to listen to you? How do you expect to be a passable pokémon trainer if you can't get your first pokémon to obey you?" he asked.

Over the past two months, I've learned that Connor is one of those rare, and more often than not irritating, people that won't allow you to get away with anything whatsoever.

"Look, I don't even have a poké ball for him, or a trainer I.D. card. He doesn't even listen to my mom, so I don't think anybody could train him," I snapped.

"What kind of thinking is that? Any pokémon can be trained, you just got to work with him," Connor shot back.

I sighed, "Connor, Loki is essentially the family pet. I don't even want to train him."

He just rolled his eyes and brought out his pikachu. Before yesterday, I didn't even know Connor had pokémon. I knew he had been a trainer a few years back, but I never even thought that he'd still have any.

Since Sara, Andrew and I weren't trainers; we couldn't participate in the contest, so we watched instead. There were plenty of caterpie and weedle around, but from listening to Connor, I knew that the only pokémon the contestants were interested in were scyther and pinsirs. Maybe even a venonat. Any others wouldn't get them very far.

Unfortunately, Connor didn't have much luck today. He kept running into weedles and out of desperation, he eventually captured a ledyba seconds before the contest ended. I guess he could take comfort in that his catch got him third place, but knowing Connor, he considered his day a loss.

"What are you going to do with her?" Sara asked him after the small awards ceremony.

Connor shrugged, "I don't have much of a use for her, so I guess I'll release her."

With a flash of red light, he let the bug pokémon out of her poké ball. She didn't appear to care much for Connor yet and turned away from him when she was released. Connor put her poké ball onto the ground and stepped on it with all his weight. The ball crumbled under him and the ledyba looked at him in surprise.

"Go on," Connor urged, "Get back into the grass."

He began to herd her back, but after a few moments, the pokémon seemed to realize that she had been freed. Once she did, she raced off.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Connor commented once the ledyba was out of sight.

"How?" Sara asked, "It's not like we had anything better to do."

"Besides," Andrew added, "I thought you liked this sort of thing. Catching pokémon and stuff," he clarified.

"Sure, but I can do better than that."

A shriek distracted us from our conversation. By now, I've gotten into the habit of looking for Loki when people cry out in surprise and my heart sank when I didn't find him next to me once again.

"Loki," I groaned and shot off towards the source of the shriek.

When I got there, I saw a middle aged woman throwing various things from a picnic basket at a quivering bush.

"Hey!" I shouted at her and the woman spun around to look at me, "What are you doing?"

"That little monster took off with the sandwiches! Is he yours?" she looked at me accusingly.

I had no idea if that was Loki inside the bush, but the way she described the thief as a "little monster," left little doubt. Sighing, I approached the bush, which had gone still after the woman stopped throwing food at it, and called out to Loki. He didn't respond immediately, but after a couple of minutes, he finally crawled out. He knew he was in trouble too, because he slunk to me close to the ground with what was left of the sandwiches in his mouth.

"Drop the, you!" the woman charged at him.

"Whoa, hold on, you're not going to get anything back if you scare him," I snapped at her.

I was right; Loki growled at her and started to back away.

"Stay!" I growled at him, and then held out my hand. "Come on, hand them over."

Loki whimpered at me and for a second, it looked like he was going to bolt back into the bushes. I glared at him and hoped for his sake that he'd figure out that if he did, he'd spend the rest of the day in his kennel.

Fortunately, he did seem to realize that I wasn't playing and dropped them on the ground. The woman snatched them up with a cry of disgust. I looked at the sandwiches and saw that Loki had eaten a bit of all of them.

"Sorry about that," I told her.

She glared at me, "That monster needs to be kept in a ball before he does something vicious."

"He stole some sandwiches," I said angrily, "It's not like he bit anybody."

The woman only snorted, then gathered what was left of her things and left. I looked down at my supposedly vicious pokémon; he was looking up at me as innocently as he could.

"Yeah, I'm not buying it. Come on, we're going home and you're sleeping outside tonight," Loki's ears dropped when he heard that and I had to turn away before I could feel sorry for him.

That's the thing about him; despite my dislike of Loki when he had been younger, he had always found a way to get to me. Whether it be his puppy eyes, cuddling up against me, or anything else that he considered adorable. We both knew he wasn't really going to sleep outside, but I wasn't going to say that to him.

Andrew and Connor were both snickering as we walked to my house. Oh yes, that was so hilarious. I was going to have to stop having Loki around those two, they're a bad influence.

"Why don't we go through the Underground? It'll be faster, your house is on the other side of the city and we could save some time, Rylie," Sara said.

I bit my lip. As soon as my parents had heard of a place called the "Underground," they had forbidden both me and Rob from going there. After all, who knew what sort of ruffians lurked there? Seriously, I knew that people went down there all the time, but if my parents found out I went down there… well, I'm not really sure what would happen.

I didn't want to tell my friends that I was afraid of going down because of my parents, so I lied.

"Aren't there trainers down there? I don't want them to think I'll battle because of Loki," I said uneasily.

As soon as I said that, I actually started to worry that it would happen. I may be angry with him right now, but I didn't want my eevee to get hurt. Loki probably couldn't do a simple tackle.

"Just tell them you don't even have an I.D.," Connor told me, "You can't battle someone without an I.D."

"You can't?"

"Well, you could probably force someone to battle, but it's not like they'd get anything out of it. If they won, how much money would you have to give them? What sort of challenge would you be?"

Too bad Connor couldn't reassure me about my other concern. I couldn't think of any other reason not to go down, so I ended up following my friends. It turns out that the Underground was pretty cool. There were some good shops and stalls and I ended up spending most of my dismal allowance of a haircut for Loki. He seemed to like it and even settled down a little.

Connor was challenged to a few battles and he won all of them. He was good, I had to admit. Part of me was hoping that he'd lose a couple so his ego would get knocked down a few pegs. Another part was secretly impressed.

We were going to sit for a few minutes to rest our legs, but my eevee decided that we weren't going to do that. Once again, I found myself chasing after him as he shot down a narrow corridor, growling all the way. I wondered why on earth I even take him with me if all he does is get me in trouble.

Loki skidded to a stop before a door at the end of the hallway and started snarling at it. Frustrated, I scooped him up and tried to carry him away from the door, but Connor stopped me.

"Wait, I think he found something."

"Found what?" I asked hotly, "A locked door? Will you please move? I just want to go home and shut him outside."

I waited for him to get out of the way, but Connor instead brushed past me and tried the knob on the door.

"I think I can get past the lock," he grunted.

"Why? What's the point of breaking into a room we know nothing about?" I rubbed my eyes in irritation.

"Because we know that Loki doesn't like whatever is in here," he answered as he began to jam his I.D. card between the door and the frame.

"Connor, I don't think this is a good idea," Sara said uneasily, "What if we get caught? Besides, my parents are going to be angry if I get home late."

"Yeah, that and how are you gonna break into this based off of Loki? He's not exactly trustworthy," Andrew added.

"Then you all can go home," Connor said through clenched teeth, "Maybe if Loki had stolen something, or if he was just playing, then yeah, there's not reason to check this door out. Think about it though, when has he ever gotten so upset about something?"

I looked down at Loki and saw that Connor was right. He wasn't struggling to get free or anything, but he was growling with his little teeth bared and his ears back. I had never seen him so uptight about anything.

A snap distracted me from Loki and I looked up and saw Connor entering through the door. The rest of us looked at each other for a moment, silently debating whether we should follow him or not. Loki made my choice for me, however, as he jumped out of my arms and slunk after Connor.

Groaning and wishing that I had left him at home today, I followed Loki and Connor. However, almost as soon as I went inside, Connor grabbed my arm and pulled me behind some boxes. He did the same with Sara and Andrew after he passed Loki to me. I was going to ask him why he was being so rough, but before I could; he mimed for me to be quiet and traced an "R" over the front of his shirt.

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but the others seemed to. Both Sara and Andrew grew pale and Andrew actually bolted out the door to presumably run home.

"Connor," Sara whispered quietly, "Maybe we should leave too. R-rylie and I aren't even trainers."

"Relax," he hissed back, "I am and besides, it's already been proven that Team Rocket can't handle a couple of kids, so why should that change now?"

Once he mentioned Team Rocket, I grew just about as frightened as Sara. I'd only heard of them back in Hoenn, seeing as Team Rocket didn't have any sort of foothold there, but the stories were still a little scary. These people would just kidnap pokémon and hold people, even entire towns, hostage. I wasn't going to ditch anyone like Andrew, but I still didn't want to be here.

"I don't think we should be here, either," I whispered, "They might try to take-"

Loki wasn't in my arms anymore. I honestly felt like I was going to cry now; if anything happened to him, I don't really know how I'd handle it.

"He's gone!" I whispered loudly.

"Again? Can't you hold on to him?" Connor snapped at me.

"I'm sorry, but I can't exactly change that now!" I shot back, "We're going to have to go after him. I can't leave him here!"

I peered around the boxes to see if I could spot him, but the "room" was much bigger than we'd anticipated. It turns out; this was more like a base than anything else. We were in a warehouse type area with boxes laid about its entirety and it appeared that Loki had disappeared into thin air.

"He probably went that way," Connor nudged me and pointed at a hallway that led deeper into this hideout.

"How do you figure that?" Sara asked.

Before he could answer, we all had to duck behind the boxes again as two Team Rocket members walked out from behind another pile of boxes. Two red "R"s were displayed across their black uniforms and we all held our breath as they strode right past us and into the hallway Connor had indicated.

"'Cause I don't think that some boxes would get him to act like that," Connor whispered once the two gang members had disappeared from view.

"Then how would he know anything bad was going on if it wasn't in the boxes?" I asked, "He can't smell that far."

"Sixth sense, pokémon have that sort of thing," was all he said and made his way to the hallway.

I felt like I had a sixth sense right now, and it was telling me to stay away from the very hallway that Connor was heading towards. However, that would mean possibly leaving Loki and I couldn't do that.

With a sigh, I followed and heard Sara do the same behind me. The hallway was a bright white, medical looking corridor. The type that would be more suited to a hospital, not a notorious gang hideout. Connor was leading the way as quietly as he could and me and Sara tried to imitate him. To me, it felt like we were a small herd of tauros and was just as loud as them too. Though, whether that is because we were actually being loud, or that it was due to my paranoia, I can't say.

The doors that lined the hallway had large, square windows set in them and as we passed them, Connor and I quickly looked into them for a small fox-dog like pokémon. The farther we went down the hallway, the more my heart sank. I had hoped that we would find Loki quickly and I knew that the longer we were here, the more likely we, or Loki, would get caught. Perhaps even all of us would get caught if we were here much longer.

It was the third-to-last door on the right that I finally heard him. Loki was scratching and whimpering from behind it. I'm not sure how he got behind it to begin with, but that didn't matter right now. Quickly and as quietly as I could, I opened the door and pulled the eevee towards me. I moved to shut it, but Connor stopped me.

"You don't want to see what he got so excited about?" he asked me.

No, I could honestly say that I didn't want to see what Loki had found, because whatever it was had apparently scared the adventure right out of him. Presently, Loki had burrowed into my chest and his small body was shivering horribly.

However, before I could protest going inside, Connor had already entered. I couldn't leave him either. Not after he had helped me find Loki. Of course, he may have done that simply to further explore the base, but he had helped me all the same.

So, I followed him— though Loki protested for me in the form of a few whimpers— and found Connor staring at the large room in shock. I soon joined him in my own surprise. Cages lined all the walls and the only break in them was the space for the door. Inside nearly every cage were pokémon, all very, very rare. Charmanders, eevee, pikachu and many more with all of their evolutions present. I could hardly take it in.

The amazing pokémon collection aside, I couldn't understand why Loki was so frightened. It was almost like he had run into a gastly or something.

"I think we should leave now," Sara whispered.

"We still don't know why Loki wanted to come down here," Connor responded absently.

He moved further into the room and as I once again followed him, I saw that this room was more of a lab than a storage room for pokémon. Lab tables were in the center of the room surrounded by medical equipment and tanks that were filled with an ugly, yellow liquid.

Before we could get any farther, the sound of what apparently was the second door into this room unlocking had us scattering to hide behind anything we could. Loki and I ducked behind one of the weird tanks. I was lucky that the liquid was thick enough to make my form seem more like an undefined shadow than that of a person.

"Do we have anything Rinaldo wants us to shift?" a female voice said as a few Rockets came into the room. I couldn't tell how many there were exactly and I wasn't too eager to risk getting seen to find out.

"Ah… yeah, he wants another togepi. Some client o' his wants one for his kid," a male voice answered the woman. The man sounded like he wasn't the type to be found in a lab. He sounded like he'd be more welcome as a bouncer, or an enforcer.

The woman, on the other hand, sounded far more sophisticated than her companion. She even had a foreign accent that I couldn't place.

"What are we supposed to use? All we have here are the pokémon we've already changed. Should we use them or….?" Another man, who sounded a bit nasally, asked the other two.

"Why would we use the subjects we've already shifted, Reynolds?" the woman snapped," Rinaldo hasn't asked us to shift any of them and in any case, we do have another subject. As it turns out, Rinaldo wasn't too happy when you approached the authorities," she simpered.

"Th-the authorities? I didn't go to the police, what are you talking about?" the far less intimidating man asked uneasily.

"We got people watchin' you," the enforcer barked, "And we know you went and squealed to the cops."

"N-no! I didn't tell anyone anything! Who would even believe this?"

The woman sighed, "Reynolds, there's no need to lie. We already know everything."

"They didn't even believe me!" Reynolds cried, "They thought I was insane, and then laughed when I kept going!"

"Rinaldo doesn't care, Reynolds," the woman told him, "All that matters is that you tried to get out."

"B-but—"

"Think of it this way," the woman continued, "What would have happened if the police had believed you? Rinaldo simply wishes to eliminate any threats to our organization. You understand, don't you?"

A struggle ensued and I guessed that the enforcer had gotten a hold of Reynolds. I didn't know what to think about this. I knew I was as scared as I ever could be at this point, but I didn't know what these people were talking about. What I did know, however, as that I wasn't too eager to see some gangster killed for snitching on his boss.

Reynolds had apparently been gagged because all his protests were now muffled. Now, it sounded like the Rocket enforcer had forced Reynolds onto one of the lab tables. There was the sound of buckles hitting table after that, then I heard someone approach the tank I was hiding behind.

I had to stop myself from abandoning my hiding place and kept completely still. For his part, Loki hadn't moved from my chest the entire time we had been in this room. I was immensely grateful for that, considering my desire to not get captured by what are probably murderous Team Rocket members.

The clapping of high heels stopped before the tank and I heard the woman fiddling with it for a moment. There was a hissing noise as I assumed the woman had siphoned off some of the think, yellow liquid from the tank. Once the woman was through with it, she approached the lab table that presumably held Reynolds.

"Have you ever had a chance to watch this process?" she asked.

The enforcer only grunted that he hadn't.

"Well then, consider yourself lucky. Hardly any of the grunts ever see this. In fact, hardly anyone in Team Rocket in its entirety ever witnesses this process. A shame really since it's quite fascinating," the woman said thoughtfully.

The sounds of a keyboard filled the room. Reynolds seemed to have resigned himself to whatever was going to happen to him because I could no longer hear his muffled cries.

"It's unfortunate that you decided to betray Team Rocket, Reynolds. You were much faster at this than I am. But, I suppose it can't be helped," she continued, "At least you can please one of our clients now."

Reynolds let out an agonized moan and that was what scared me most of all. I couldn't see what was happening to him, but I could hear his continuous cries of pain and some very ominous snapping and cracking noises. It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but it felt much longer. Finally, it all stopped and everything went quiet.

"Well, what did you think?" the woman asked cheerily, "I think he's come out quite nice."

The enforcer didn't respond.

"Mmm, don't be alarmed by the nausea, there is an acquired taste for shifting. I remember that I hadn't enjoyed my first time either."

One of the cages along the walls was opened then slammed shut.

"Come, we should inform Rinaldo that his problem has been dealt with," they left through the door they entered from and I heard the lock click into place.

None of us moved for the longest time, and it was Connor that first left his hiding place. He approached cage that sounded like it had been used by the Rockets.

"Connor, let's go. I don't want to be here anymore," Sara whispered.

"Look at what they did to him," he breathed and ignored Sara completely.

"I don't want to look! I want to leave," she cried.

"Sara, shut up before someone hears you!" Connor snapped, "Come here, you won't believe what happened to the guy."

My curiosity got the better of me and despite Sara's objections, I approached the cage. At first, I didn't understand what I was looking at. There was a pokémon inside, nothing else. However, I recognized the pokémon as a togepi a few seconds later and remembered that only ten minutes before, those Team Rocket members had been complaining that they didn't have one. A togepi appears, only two of the three Rockets end up leaving the room, some talk about shifting….

"They—How? How does that happen?" I asked with my brain now numb.

"I think it's that yellow crap," Connor answered.

"We need to leave," I told him, "They could come back and…," I trailed off and hoped that I didn't have to finish my sentence.

I could now understand why Loki was so frightened of this room, and I wanted nothing more than to leave this place entirely. It gave me a feeling of both dread and familiarity, though I can't say I knew why it made me feel the latter.

"Yeah," was all Connor said before he again took the lead and directed us back to the large warehouse-type room.

Within minutes, we found ourselves back within the crowds in the Underground. I could hardly believe that we had gotten out without getting caught and I kept looking behind us to make sure no Rockets were following. No one spoke as we walked to my house on the outskirts of the city and we barely said goodbye as I went inside.