CHAPTER 10

It was amazing to me how fast a dream could turn into a nightmare. I kept pinching myself to see if it was just a darkrai messing with my head. Sadly, everything felt way too real for it to be an illusion. I hugged my wife while we stood alongside the professor and several curious zigzagoons. The fire was still raging badly and the roof was near collapsing. I knew that it would be way too late for anything to be recovered.

"Norman."

I looked up. There was a firefighter standing just a few feet away, his yellow hat shading his face from the moon.

"Yes?" I said.

"I'm sorry to say that this house is already damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, you could request the recovery papers from Allregion Insurance right now to save the price you would have to pay."

That was a relief to me. I had just barely covered the cost of Allregion Insurance only a few months before.

"That's good to know. Thank you."

The man nodded and walked away. I turned to my wife.

"We don't have to be watching this, you know."

She took her eyes off the burning house. I could feel the water vapor of the hoses and floatzels washing over us.

"I know. We should probably find a place to stay while a new house is rebuilt. What about the Birch's place? They probably wouldn't mind."

I shook my head.

"Maybe for a week or two. But we seriously should just consider moving away all together. There are plenty of good houses in Rustboro, and they are still close to the gym. I agree with you that we should probably stay with the Birch's for now, though."

We settled the matter. Birch said that we could stay with his family for a month at maximum. I remembered seeing Brendan and May walking towards route 101. I left my wife with the professor and walked out into the light brush of the forest. I needed to tell Brendan what our plans were.

After a few minutes of walking, I heard a lot of shouting and grunting up ahead. My heart rate spiked. Were they in trouble? I ran as fast as I possibly could without smashing into the tree that passed every now and then. The shouting abruptly stopped. I kept going, but more stealthily. I came to a huge clearing where Brendan and May were having a panicked conversation with someone. I crouched behind a bush to listen in.

"They don't need them. They'll be fine. But us on the other hand...No arguments. We leave now," said the man.

I was ready to spring out and tackle this creep to the ground, but a faint buzzing sound stopped me. Time seemed to hold me still as its volume increased. A helicopter rose into view, large and dark with flashing searchlights panning the forest floor. My gym leader's reasoning wasn't good enough to whip me into action. Fear held me frozen in place, which was something that has never happened before. Come on! MOVE! COME ON! I stayed still, disbelieving that this was actually happening to me.

"RUN!" the dark man yelled.

I watched as they ran past me in the dark. The helicopter's lights cut through the dark until one of them landed on the strange man. I watched in horror as the chopper fired something from an unseen gun. He almost immediately collapsed. I finally jumped out of my hiding place, my mind screaming "IDIOT!" the whole way.

I was far behind Brendan, and feared that it would be too late to protect him. The chopper shot again, this time striking the silhouette of May in the back. I held back a scream. My son was next. I realized that being alone was my weakness here. I finally got my muscles to work, and with the speed of a gym leader, I pulled out the poke ball holding my pidgeot. I held her beak shut the moment she materialized.

"Listen, get me to Littleroot as fast as you can, but avoid being seen by that helicopter."

THWACK!

Brendan was down. I tried to keep my mind as cool as possible. I hopped onto my pidgeot's back and got to the professor's house in record time.

Hey! Congrats if you got this far in the book. Please post as much criticism as you possibly can.

If you have read all of the previous chapters (probably), then you should revisit the prologue. There is a new introduction that came along with the chapter 10 update.

I realized that fanfics are always better when it doesn't start with the stereotypical fanfiction pokemon battle. That issue is now fixed. Also, remember to include story and plot twist ideas in the reviews.

-PatrioticSwellow