A lanky teenager was hiking through the woods, a typical summer activity for his age group. He wasn't there to look at the nature, though. He was holding a prepaid phone to his ear.
"Alright," said the voice over the phone. "Go left."
He stopped and looked left, pushing his glasses up on his face with his free hand. "Are you sure? There's not really a trail in that direction." There was quite a bit of undergrowth, with a few pointy branches sticking out in dangerous-looking directions.
The voice on the other side huffed in impatience. "I said, 'Go left.'"
"Okay. Jeez." The teen sighed. He really should have put on a less expensive pair of jeans. After a minute of pushing through the undergrowth, he came into a clearing.
"Good," said the voice. "You're in the clearing."
"How do you know where I am?" asked the teen.
"GPS, duh. Now, walk forward 10 paces and look right."
He complied. Upon looking right, he gasped and jumped back in fright. "Oh, Christ!"
"What? What is it?" asked the voice.
"There's a dead guy here!" There, lying in the weeds, was a man's body, dressed in a navy uniform.
"Oh, that's him."
"What?! You wanted me to meet a dead guy?!"
"I'll call you back." The voice hung up.
[INSERT OPENING THEME HERE]
Chapter Two: On the Case
There was a knock on the door of Leon Vance's office. Without any confirmation from the Director, Gibbs came through the door.
"You called?" he asked.
"Yes." Vance stood up from his desk as he usually did for these talks with Gibbs. "DiNozzo is missing?"
"It's nothing you need to worry about," assured Gibbs.
"Actually, I think it's my job to worry about this sort of thing."
"We have it under control."
There was another knock on the door.
"Come in," said Vance.
McGee leaned into the room. "Boss, you need to see this."
Vance waved them out, and Gibbs followed McGee back to the bullpen. "What is it?"
McGee grabbed the remote and hit a few buttons. A video appeared on the screen. "This a security feed from earlier today."
The time-stamp read 5:42 A.M. It showed Tony walk in with a box of donuts and sit at his desk. He began eating a donut. Suddenly, Gibb's desk shook visibly. Tony stood up and went to investigate. As he approached, a dark figure emerged from behind the desk and pushed past Tony. He gave chase immediately.
"Somebody went through your desk?" asked Bishop.
"How did they get in?" asked Gibbs.
McGee said, "I don't know."
"You don't know," restated Gibbs with a mix of disbelief and thinly veiled disapproval.
"Here's the other clip."
The time-stamp read 5:45 A.M. It showed Tony cornering the figure and leveling his pistol at the figure. It turned around. It was too dark to be seen by the camera, but Tony recoiled visibly. The figure suddenly fired Dark Pulses of energy at Tony. Tony fired twice and hit the figure once. It grabbed its shoulder as Tony collapsed to the floor. Suddenly, a hole opened up in one of the walls, except there was no room on the other side. Only a vortex. The camera feed stopped suddenly.
"Why did you stop the feed?" asked Gibbs.
"The data's encrypted," explained Bishop. "Someone's tried to hide it."
"Decrypt it, then."
McGee said, "The next frame we can recover is from 5:50 A.M., and Tony's gone by then."
"Recover all of it. And find out who tampered with the system."
Gibbs walked out of the room. McGee looked at the screen with apprehension. This was going to be a monster of a job.
Tony was looking at himself. Between the red front, the green everything else, and the leaves coming off of his wrists and his rear, he was very close to panicking. "What the hell happened to me? I look like a freak."
"You look normal for a Grovyle," offered the Eevee.
"What's a Grovyle?"
The Eevee cocked his head. "It's what you are, isn't it?"
"..." Tony considered that possibility for a moment. "It shouldn't be," he said.
"Um..."
"I'm supposed to be human," explained Tony.
"A human? Those are the fairy tale creatures, right?"
"Fairy tales? I'm a human!"
The image the Eevee was getting was very worrying. "...do you need help?" Mental help?
"I'm still a little in shock here. Where am I?"
"Little Woods."
"Yeah, that's not a lot of help. How about a country, or a continent? Hell, I'd even be content knowing what planet I'm on."
"Um, you're really weird. I should probably go..." The Eevee turned to leave.
Tony called, "Hang on, kid."
"What is it?" he asked a little warily as he turned back.
"Are there any towns nearby?"
"Yeah. There's Pokémon Square really close by."
"What's a pokémon?"
"It's what we are."
"You said I was a Grovyle."
"Well yeah, um..." The Eevee thought for a moment. "It's like we're both plants, but you're a tree and I'm a flower."
"Oh. So 'pokémon' is the overarching term for freaks like us."
"We're not freaks!" exclaimed the Eevee. "Well, I'm not a freak..."
"What are you trying to say, kid?"
Suddenly, a female voice cried out, "Help!"
Tony and the Eevee turned to the source of the voice, a large butterfly flying towards them. Tony asked, "What is it?"
"My son fell into a crevice!"
"Oh, no!" said the Eevee. "Is he okay?"
"I don't know... I—he was right next to me, and then—"
"Lady," said Tony, transitioning seamlessly into cop mode. "Slow down. Tell me exactly what happened."
"I... My son and I, we were going through the woods, and then a crack opened up in the ground. I barely noticed because I was flying at the time, but—my daring Caterpie! Oh—!"
"Caterpie. That's your son, right?"
"Y-yes."
"We'll get him out of there."
"We?" asked the Eevee.
Tony said, "Come on, kid. You're not just gonna abandon someone in need of help, are you?"
The Eevee steeled himself. "No. You're right! Let's go!"
They ran towards the crevice.
McGee was leaning over his desk, cradling his head in his hands.
"Argh, I can't make any sense of this."
Bishop looked up from the paperwork she was filing. "What's up?"
"I can't decrypt this. I've tried every backdoor, shortcut, and mathematical weakness I can think of, and nothing works."
"Maybe you should take a break."
"No. Gibbs'll kill me if he thinks I'm slacking off."
Bishop nodded knowingly. "Yeah. Tell you what. I've got a bag of chips in my bag. You can have it."
"Really?"
"Yup. You look like you could use a pick-me-up."
"Thanks. You're a life-saver." McGee crossed the bullpen and started going through Bishop's bag. When he pulled out the bag of chips, a rectangular box of plastic fell to the floor with a clunk.
"Hey! Careful!" called out Bishop.
McGee picked up the device. It reminded him of something "Is this a Game Boy?"
Bishop turned to face McGee. "It's a 3DS, actually. You didn't break it, did you?"
"No." McGee opened it. "Why are you carrying this around?"
"I get bored on the bus."
He turned it on out of curiosity. The little machine lit up with a little jingle. He took a look at the game loaded in and almost scoffed. "Pokémon, really?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Isn't that a kid's game?"
Bishop simply said, "It's fun. And it's also really deep, too."
He scoffed under his breath. "Yeah, sure." McGee remembered playing Pokémon himself. Back in college, when the Game Boy was the coolest thing. He remembered it fondly, but it seemed a bit childish, even back then. "Did they run out of colors?"
"What do you mean?"
"'Pokémon X' isn't an imaginative name, is it?"
After making a silent approach, Gibbs asked, "Playing games, McGee?"
McGee nearly dropped the 3DS in shock. "Boss! Uh, no, I was just—"
Gibbs interrupted him. "Get your gear. We've got a dead marine."
"What about Tony?"
Gibbs frowned at McGee. His expression said it all. You think I don't know that?
"I'm gonna grab my gear." McGee hastily stuffed the console back in Bishop's bag and ran to his desk.
Tony and his new friend were searching around for Caterpie.
Hoping to break the awkward silence that had developed, Tony asked, "So, what sort of pokéman are you?"
"It's pokémon. And I'm an Eevee."
"What's your name, kid?"
"I'm Leaf," said Leaf. "What's your name?"
"Anthony DiNozzo."
After a moment, Leaf asked, "Which one is it? Anthony or DiNozzo?"
"It's both."
"How can a pokémon have two names?"
"Humans generally have a first name and a last name."
"Why?"
Tony thought about it for a moment. "The first one is a name used to refer to you. The last one refers to your family."
"That sounds confusing."
"It isn't."
"Well, what do I call you, then?"
"My friends call me Tony."
"Tony?"
"Yeah."
"...That's a funny name!" Leaf exclaimed.
"Oh, yeah? What kind of name is Leaf?"
"One that makes sense."
They came across a few seed-like pokémon. Some Sunkern were floating around.
Noticing that there was a face on each one, Tony decided to call out, "Hey! Have you seen a kid come through here recently? A Caterpie or something?"
They all turned around, looking at Tony and Leaf with dead eyes.
"Kid, is this normal behavior?"
"Oh, no..."
"Kid, talk to me."
"I hope you know how to fight," warned Leaf.
"What are you—?"
Without any further warning, the Sunkern all charged at once.
Tony reacted by reaching to his side, before remembering he didn't have his gun. "Shit," he muttered.
Leaf got into a fighting stance and shouted, "Swift!" He shot out a bunch of stars which swiftly hit all of the Sunkern.
Tony was speechless. He started hitting the pokémon swarming him with his fists. Then, dimly, he felt something from the edge of his senses. He grabbed it and the next time he swung, he found that the leaves on the backs of his wrists had merged into a pair of matching blades. Pleasantly surprised, he slashed away at the Sunkern swarming him until they were all on the ground.
"Now that's a knife," he wisecracked.
"Actually, that's Leaf Blade."
"Excuse me?"
"You used a move." As the leaves on the back of Tony's wrists separated and faded to their "normal" green, Leaf explained, "Pokémon can use moves which have various special effects, like my Swift."
"Really? You gotta teach me how to use Swift, then."
"Oh, uh, I don't think Grovyle can learn Swift."
"What are you talking about?"
"Certain pokémon can only learn certain moves."
"Then what moves can I learn?"
"I dunno. I'm not an encyclopedia."
"Sure had me fooled."
Leaf didn't know what to think of that. "Uh, thanks?"
"Whatever, kid. Let's just find that Caterpie."
Gibbs pulled the car into the parking lot at Greenbelt Park. Ducky's van was already parked there. As soon as the team stepped out of the car, an elderly member of the park police approached them.
"Are you Agent Gibbs?" he asked.
Gibbs displayed his badge and ID in response.
"Great. Come on, I'll take you to the site."
They started following him down a forest path.
"Yeah, some kid found the body. He was in a real state. Still, better off than your guy. Isn't far now."
"He's still at the crime scene, right?" asked Bishop.
The police officer nodded. "Of course he is. I'm not a fool. I know your procedures. Besides, he seemed mighty shifty."
"What do you mean?"
"Seemed like he was hiding something. Here we are."
Gibbs immediately ordered, "McGee, search for evidence. Bishop, pictures." They got to work.
Dr. Mallard and Jimmy Palmer were already on the scene. They were sticking a temperature probe into the victim's liver. Palmer read out, "Twenty-eight point five degrees Celsius."
"And what does that mean?" asked Gibbs.
"Ah, Jethro," said Ducky. "Good to see you. It mean that our victim has been dead for only six hours."
"He was killed in the early morning?"
"That's right," said Palmer. "You gotta wonder what he was doing out here. I mean, it's off the trail."
"He was probably brought here postmortem. His uniform is, for the most part, immaculate," said Ducky. "Had he run here, there would probably be tears, or at the very least stains, on his trousers."
Gibbs knelt down to look at the body more closely. The service uniform he was wearing seemed freshly laundered. The markings on it identified the victim as a lance corporal. "Were you able to ID him?"
Palmer said, "Yeah. We checked his fingerprints against the database. He's Lance Corporal Mason Ryer. Not in active duty right now."
"Any next of kin?" asked Gibbs. That was always his least favorite part.
"Nobody on file."
"Cause of death?"
"He appears to have died of asphyxiation—note the bloodshot eyes—but there are no ligature marks or bruises anywhere on the body," said Ducky.
"Maybe he was smothered with a pillow?" offered Palmer.
"Is that even possible?" asked Gibbs.
Ducky said, "If he was smothered, then there would have doubtlessly been a struggle. To hold this man down would have required a lot of strength. And even then, you would expect to find signs of a struggle. There are none."
"Maybe he was drugged."
"Possibly. I'll know more after I conduct an autopsy." Ducky packed his things and stood up. "Palmer, prepare our friend here for transport."
"Got it." Palmer prepared a body bag.
Gibbs walked away to collect evidence and maybe a cup of coffee, too. He had a lot of work to do.
A/N: This chapter isn't as polished as I hoped it would be, but I just want to give you guys something. Hopefully it's good enough.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback and the favorites and all the other things. Have a nice day.
