PKMN2K10

by Mr. Dynasty

After a crushing defeat, Ash returns home to rediscover his ambitions as a trainer. Friends and foes both new and old surround him on all sides, but can he find the way to forge ahead and emerge victorious, even as the world grows darker and ever more sinister around him? Language/Violence

12. Chapter XII

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon or Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket

Chapter Summary: Trying times for Ash Ketchum have been overcome, at long last, or so he thinks. Team Nebula hasn't yet had their last word on the matter. How will Doc get along without Holiday's constant nagging? Furthermore, how will Holiday and his big mouth survive without Doc to back him up?

---

PKMN2K10

Chapter XII

"Not Quite As Planned"

Today was the day his ferry departed. Three days into Vermillion from Cerulean, and two more by boat to Mandarin Island. Ash really couldn't have been more eager. He was out on the wharf, staring out into the bay of Vermillion, thinking of his journey to participate in the Elite Four training camp. There was only one slight problem...

His boat had left an hour ago.

He looked down at his gear again, certain that he'd set his alarm for nine AM. He'd double-checked. Triple-checked, even. That should have left him with more than enough time to get up, shower, leave the Pokemon center and make it all the way here, with an hour left to spare. Instead, his alarm was set for nine PM, and he was sitting here, like a chump.

The forlorn trainer looked down at the black invitation card in his hands. This was supposed to have been his saving grace, right here. This invitation was supposed to have been his springboard. His last chance.

He swelled and boiled underneath his deflated exterior, though. Within a few minutes of staring blankly out into the bay at the smoke-trail of a fast-retreating vessel, he thought might've been his own, Ash finally lost control. Crushing the black card in his gloves, he hurled the balled invitation out into the water, shouting a word that he was certain his mother would never have allowed him to use in her house. Of course the wind caught it, and slapped it back into his face, which only raise his ire further. He gathered the card back up into his grip and prepared to hurl it again defiantly, when someone nearby laughed.

Ash turned to regard the person venomously, nearly dumping Pikachu, who had struggled to hold on thus far, into the drink. He remembered two weeks ago having found his courage lacking where in it was required to show this particular person the length of his ire, but no more. His anger was so complete at this point, that neither the width of Docs shoulders or the height of his stance, both a considerable deal greater than his own, slowed his pace as he stomped toward the Admin.

Doc, who was leaning easily against the railing, only widened his smirk, even when Ash so brazenly extended his index finger and prodded it sharply into his chest.

"What in the hell is so funny?" Ash roared, grinding the gloved fingertip into his mocking adversary's athletic shirt.

Doc reigned in his smirk a little bit, and then frowned as he slapped the offending hand aside sharply, though it came with little effort. He stood straight, just to let the young trainer how much trouble he would be in, if he decided to keep pressing his luck. Ash, who seemed to get the picture stepped away, though his snarling visage did not change in the least.

The Nebula glanced over towards the Pikachu on Ash's shoulder, who's expression seemed to be a mixture of empathetic agitation for his master's own anger and confusion, as though the Pokemon couldn't understand why or at what it's trainer was so angry. Of course, that revelation only made his smile wider. The Repel was still working.

He thought back on his last meeting with Holiday.

The taller, more boisterous Admin had left yesterday afternoon, bound for Orre, on yet another airplane that Doc was glad he was not taking.

"You'll be fine." Holiday had assured him, humping the carry-on bag over his shoulder with a disapproving snort for his partners hesitance. Reassurance never came easily from the engineer's mouth, of course, and so Doc did not take it lightly. "Just follow the kid, and keep getting in his way."

"Doesn't sound too hard," Doc said with a somewhat relieved chuckle.

"It shouldn't be," Holiday assessed. "I already hacked into his phone and fucked all his scheduling up for the next few weeks. He was supposed to head out to the archipelago and train with some big-names from the league, but I doubt he's gonna make it, now." The admin laughed. "Just follow the tracking signal, like how I showed you. Use the repel if you need to."

"Now boarding passengers in sections 1-A through 13-D. Final call for passengers boarding flight 112, non-stop to Gateon Port."

"Alright, Bro, that's me." Holiday said, and with a casual gesture, turned, and walked away.

"Hey, Holiday." Doc called after him. "What do you think I should do, yanno, once I find him?"

Holiday turned back just once, and offered him a shrug. "Just do what you do best, bro."

As Doc stood now, facing the seething, burning teenager, he crossed his arms. What he did best, what he had always done best, was rise to the challenge. And today was the day he would make good on his promise to compensate Ash for the sense of defeat he'd been left with when last they'd met on the field of competition, pitting skill against skill in the streets of Viridian. Ash had not beaten him them, not definitively at least, but the task before him had been to lose the young pursuer, not remain ahead of him, no matter how significant that lead might've been.

He'd thought for a long time on how today was going to play out. He'd imagined, in his head what it would be like, if he had simply brought Ash's Pidgeot out with him, and started a real fight, a real competition with the young trainer, provoking him to the extreme, running and battling his way through this city as well. He was confident that he could win such a competition, now. But there was more to his decision not to, than any simple orders to the contrary he might've received. His competition with Ash needed to be complete, and wholesome. Doc was not nearly so cut-throat, he believed, as his partner. If he did too much to shake Ash up beforehand, then he would know it, and it would diminish his sense of satisfaction with the win.

He could do a lot to arrange such a fight, but he could not delude himself into believing that he'd beaten an opponent on equal ground, the way that Holiday seemed to be able to. He knew that Holiday would never have gone along with this plan, and there were a lot of reasons why. Foremost, he was still relying on a little bit of give from Ash to glue everything into place. Holiday would never formulate a plan that relied on emotions like that. But, he reminded himself, Holiday wasn't here, and this was his show for the next month.

"Nothin'," Doc offered at last. "Just didn't know you were such a crybaby, is all."

Doc tried to hide his widened grin as Ash erupted into more furious hysterics. Back against the rail again, the muscular trainer reclined easily, hooking his thumbs on the inside of his pokebelt. "If it makes you feel any better, you'd have probably just gotten in their way, anyhow," he added for good measure, when Ash's rage seemed like it would wind itself down. Of course, the incensed young boy only flew into more cursing and ranting, all of which worked itself wonderfully towards Doc's ultimate design.

"You don't understand a thing about it, because you don't know me. I don't even know how you or your stupid friend keep bumping into me! What the hell do you think makes you so special? I've trained in four different regions! I've got badges and trophies from here to Hoenn! I've seen more Pokemon than most people know exists! I've battled more trainers than I can even count! Who the hell are you? You're just some weirdo who travels around pulling splinters out of Pokemon paws, and has nothing better to do than give me a hard time! Well, screw you! You don't know-"

"I'm better than you, I know that." Doc said with a shrug, as though the matter were hardly up for questioning.

"Bullshit!" Ash said immediately, slamming the back of two fingers together against his palm to provide evidence. "I saved you and that goofy-looking idiot from Golem in Mt. Moon. If you're so great, how come you couldn't do that yourself?"

Doc waved the notion away. "I could've dealt with that. I was working on it, actually until you showed up. Notice how I still had Pokemon left to use," the admin countered, providing evidence of his own, however lame it might've been. Had his Pokemon selection been a little better, he could have dealt with the problem more cleanly. He'd been forced to switch his lineup just recently before, though.

"You're a liar." Ash said dismissively. "If you had the problem under control, I'd have never gone down there."

It was Doc's turn to be skeptical. There was no way Ash could have known just how their fight with Golem was going, until he was in the chamber with them. It was pitch-black in those tunnels. When he thought about it, he realized that there was a remote possibility that the Lucario that had been with him at the time, might've known, being a Psychic Pokemon, after all, but Ash himself probably couldn't have even heard them through the collapsed wall he'd come crashing through. Which, Doc supposed, begged the question: How had Ash actually known where to find them at all?

"You're a liar." Doc said, venturing a guess. "You wouldn't have been there at all, if it weren't for that Lucario- which obviously wasn't yours." He could see from Ash's expression that he'd hit the mark. "Don't try and take credit for that."

Ash ground his teeth together sharply, so loudly that Doc, even a full five strides away, could hear it. The admin just crossed his arms.

"Just get away from me," Ash managed finally, struggling to hold it all in.

"It's a free country." Doc said, with some amusement. "I can do whatever I want."

The force of Ash's arms and legs snapping to full extension in rage, as he straightened out to full height, created a whooshing sound, like a door slamming. So what if he'd missed out on the biggest opportunity of his career. So what if he was going to regret this day for the rest of his natural life. Right now, the only thing that mattered to him was dismissing that smile from Doc's face.

"I'd crush you in a battle." Ash promised, his features deadlocked in a loathsome expression that Ash held in strict reservation for the nastiest of foes. He remembered giving a similar look to J, once. Ash didn't really understand runaway hate for what it was, and since this was the first such occasion, he wasn't really sure where to begin. The young trainer shook his head, and continued on in spite of that, too angry to stop himself. "I don't care what you know, or what you think you know; I've got way more experience and skill than my recent performance might suggest. If that's all you've got to go on, then let me make things clear for you: I'd make you look like an idiot. You'd embarrass yourself against me. I've beaten people who wouldn't wipe their own asses with someone like you. In fact, I'm so confident I could beat you at any thing that had even the most remote thing to do with Pokemon training, that I'd-"

Doc chose now to cut across his young rival. In truth, he'd meant to the moment the suggestion of competition had occurred, but something unusual had held him up for a second. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, even now, as he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket. A small flash of color somewhere. A blue light, perhaps a reflection in the young trainers eyes, maybe. Whatever it was, it was gone now. "You're on. Hope you've got plenty of spare time ahead of you.

"Oh, wait..." Doc chided, "You do!"

He held out the piece of paper, and plopped into into the clawed up hand that rose to accept it grudgingly. "Meet me at this address, before sundown. "

"You just made a big mistake." Ash promised him, closing his gloved fingers tightly around the paper, and clenching his eyes shut, as if containing some raw energy within that would escape through any outlet if if he gave it a chance.

Doc laughed at him as he walked away. Soon, Ash was alone again on the wharf, listening to the sound of crashing waves and his own grinding teeth. Pikachu cooed quietly at him, having perceived the entire thing as a near-psychotic episode from his partner, being unable to perceive the person whom Ash had been threatening. Ash didn't hear the concerns, though, too lost in his own cyclonic anger over the whole episode.

He would go to wherever this idiot had called him out to, humiliate him, and if the muscle-headed oaf was lucky, he would walk away before he did anything drastic.

---

Holiday, meanwhile, was having his own problems. Nebula grunts, under the guise of privatized Cipher security had collected him immediately from the airport. Two particularly large individuals in black suits seized his pokebelt, hooked his arms and escorted him not-so-neatly into the back of a black sedan, and took up seats on either side of him.

Not usually so fond of such attention, Holiday tried to take as much of it in stride as possible. Putting his feet up on the console and kicking a black-suited elbow out of his way in the process, surprising himself at how little room was actually available in a fully loaded car. The admin cracked a smile. "Damn, ain't this cozy? Couldn't 'a sprung for something a little more spacious? I just got off a thirteen hour flight, here."

Nobody gave him a response, which somehow, he thought he liked less than the expected snarl and batting away of his foot. He just made a face, though. The ride was considerably better than the cramped air-liner, at the very least.

He played on his Xtranciever to shorten the ride. After nearly an hour of leafing through the downloaded titles on his Virtual Console, he chose an old one that caught his fancy. Soon he was jabbering away, quite ignorant of the scornful stares coming in from all around him.

"Pikachu," He said, into the device's microphone, trying to catch the attention of the on-screen Pokemon. There was no response. With a harrumph he tried again. "Pikachu!" For some reason, this worked, though he could've sworn that his diction and tone was identical.

"No, not Acorn. Onion!" He needed to make that soup. The soup required onions. Not fucking Acorns.

"Making that shitty little face isn't going to change my mind," he countered, as Pikachu scowled at him for his decision. Pikachu was fond of Acorns apparently. "Pick up the damn Onion." He smiled widely as Pikachu scampered over, and carried out his command.

Unfortunately, he ran out of time and Bulbasaur's stew ended up tasting like shit anyways, because as Holiday suspected, neither Bulbasaur nor Pikachu knew the first thing about making soup. Really, it seemed like a foolish assumption to have made in the first place. Feeling like scolding them all for being so stupid, he selected his worlds carefully, and spoke them as clearly into the microphone as he could, when offered the chance to comment on their attempt. "You're all Faggots."

Soon it was the end of the day, and he said "Goodbye." But apparently, Pikachu was either still pissed at him over how miserable the soup had turned out, or was just clingy. With a forlorn expression, the Pokemon stalked away, before realizing that Holiday wasn't going to offer any further words of farewell. With an angry look, it scampered through the hedge. "Don't go away mad, fag. Just go away."

As the screen faded to black, he shrugged. "You'll be back. They always come back."

When the driver cleared his throat, Holiday looked up. Holding the wrist-bound item up for inspection in the rear-view mirror, he pointed at it, to indicate the tiny yellow Pokemon pawing at his patio door, desperate to be let inside for more abuse. "See? Toldja."

"Get out." the not so friendly driver commanded. Holiday glanced over to see that they had at last arrived.

With a sigh, he allowed five or so contemptuous seconds to pass without action; his own silent voice of protest. Then he clapped his Xtranciever closed and began the laborious process of extricating himself from the middle seat. When at last he stood on the outside of the sedan, he and his four man escort found themselves in the Realgam Tower plaza, standing in the shadow of the single largest structure in the world. Most men would have felt humbled in the sight of the nearly four-thousand foot structure. Most men, certainly, but Holiday wasn't like most men.

Furthermore, he'd been responsible for most of the base-line research that went into the grav-lev system that kept the colossal structure upright. He wasn't going to claim that he had been chief engineer for the project or anything, but most of his own undergraduate study had contributed to that repulsion system. In fact, most of the systems for which Cipher holdings had been claimed were, in part at least, his work, if truth were to be told- which Holiday would go to great lengths to see that it wasn't.

Instead of looking upward, Holiday stuck both of his gloved hands into his pockets and then nodded out ahead, as though now he were becoming impatient. "Mosey on."

He let them take up rigid position on either side of him, two by two as they entered the massive tower through the glass and steel presidium, flashing electronic ID badges wherever pertinent.

He stepped into the elevator head of them, taking a eyeful of the distant canyon through the shaft, the outer portion of which was comprised by a glass tube on the exterior of the tower itself. As expected, the four immense suits pressed in behind him, coming to rest easily in each of the elevators non-cardinal directions, as silent as they had been this whole trip.

As he heard the ding of the elevator door behind him, he pointed vapidly into the distance. "Hey guys." he asked, his smirk ever-building, "Is that a UFO?"

Holiday was a little surprised that they all turned to look, since it would've been better if they'd have all kept themselves preoccupied honestly, but he tried not to let that stop him. Turning to eyeball the closing doors, he coiled his legs beneath him in preparation for a flying leap. Using a move Doc hadn't so much taught him, as performed in front of him enough for him to critically observe, then make fun of, Holiday narrowed his profile by turning every appendage sidelong, and hopping sideways through the narrow opening of the elevator door.

He landed on his face on the floor outside. With a snarl, he glanced back toward the door, thinking that perhaps he should've adjusted the timing to compensate for any extra gut he might've packed on since they'd started his assignment. Instead, he saw his shoe caught in the jamb. He retracted it, narrowly, and let the doors slide shut, before the automatic safety mechanism brought them sliding back open.

Unfortunately this did little to stop the probing fingers of his escort as they narrowly caught the sealing portal, and tried to force it back open, though, If his fall had been something born of clumsiness, his following sprint must've seemed Olympiad in nature, by comparison.

Doc's track coach had once said that Holiday was the antithesis of an athlete: Lazy, out of shape, and ill-built. But when the team's Houndour mascot had broken lose from it's Poke ball and given chase to the ever-casual, trudging Holiday, when he'd come to meet up with Doc after school, the speed at which the lanky young man had taken off to scale the bleachers three at a time, tripping and fumbling every step and still making amazing time, left the entire team in such state of bafflement, that the coach had been all but required to open a spot on the team- which Holiday had flatly declined, surprising no one.

Holiday remembered the nickname "Crazy Legs" going around campus for a while, but "Coward Legs" was probably more like it.

The way he weaved and thrashed through the grasping limbs and clawing hands was anything but elegant, but once he was in the clear, there wasn't a force in the world that was going to slow him down. He barreled down a side-hall, crashing into an OL, putting her out on her back and treading over her like uneven ground. He was vaguely aware that the briefcase she'd thrown into the air had landed on his back when he careened to the side, and had to double-up his footwork, and slap one hand to the granite floor to keep himself upright.

His sneakers still bit the floor at turbo-speed though, and even with all their size and muscle and determination, the four grunts, with their three-pieces and oxfords could hardly keep pace. It seemed like Holiday should be spitting up foundation in his wake, as he crashed through the double-doors to the stairwell.

That, they looked upon with renewed hope though, for Holiday's notable, awkward gait, sloppy demeanor and expanding paunch made it obvious that he was ill-equipped to keep this up for long In a seven-thousand six-hundred and seventy four step test of endurance up two hundred and eighty flights of stairs, the out-of shape administrator was bound to lose, after all.

When they made it into the stairwell they could hear his sneakers slapping and squeaking against the floor, already two levels above them. A long series of rapid staccato bounces, and then two long strides as he made the landing.

Holiday too began to realize the error of his course, as the adrenaline of the moment receded. Gradually the stairs began to feel steep, and the landings felt impossibly brief. He chanced a glance over the railing, and spotted his pursuers three floors below him, looking up at him over the banister in kind. He glanced up, and it was like staring into infinity. It felt like he'd already run a mile, and he hadn't even made a dent in the distance remaining. Realgam stretched out forever, overhead, truly humbling him.

"Fuck this." Holiday proclaimed, taking up a brisk pace again with a huff, but working around in the sleeve of his jacket for a poke ball. He threw out the one remaining ball, which he always kept tucked away near his shoulder, for just such reasons. He rued that it contained his Rattata, but for now, it would do. Without explaining- for he was far too busy keeping from tripping himself, as he tucked one leg up and pulled off the shoe mid-stride, then did the same thing with the other, tying the laces together.

After hurling them out in front of himself, onto the landing above, he pointed. "Take those upstairs!" his Rattata gave him a troublesome look that distinctly reminded him of the precocious digital Pokemon on his Xtranciever, but he would brook no argument. He continued to point, "What, you think you're a Pikachu or something? That you can just get all sassy with me, because you're adorable? Well I got news for you: you ain't cute! So get to steppin', before I punt you over the rail you ugly little-"

The last part of his insult was cut short as he heard four sets of oxfords hit the landing below, and Holiday, possessed by the same fear-induced power-surge slipped back toward the access doors, and neatly navigated his way to the other side of them, pushing the hydraulic door-stop closed neatly and silently behind himself.

He could hear the four clamber up the steps just outside, and then turn, unerringly to follow the steady clop-clop of Rattata dragging his shoes up the stairs a level above them. His smile could not have encompassed more of his face. He let out a long, quiet gust of wind, as he turned about.

There was a meeting going on behind him, and now all eyes at the elliptical table were turned to face him, staring quizzically at the man who was entirely out of place in their button-down, professional environment with his vintage haircut, scorching pink jacket, and shoeless feet. He made a face at them, and for the most part, they went back to what they were doing. He did belong here, after all, though he mostly worked in the upper levels, and in the sub-basement. People certainly recognized him, and knew that his antics didn't have to make sense.

Tucking both hands into his pockets, he trudged to the end of the room, and opened the door to leave.

The gray-suited finance officer at the head of the desk cleared his throat awkwardly. "Er, so, as I was saying; domestic sales are back up this quarter, and foreign holdings continue to report up-trends numbering-"

Holiday slammed the door shut, without explanation, and moved to the next one.

"Numbering in the upper eights. We've also got a major lease ending before the fiscal year, and-"

Again, perplexedly, Holiday moved to the next door, the last of the three exits to the room, and threw it open.

"Fuck!" the admin snarled.

A junior accountant spoke up first. "Is there something I can help you with?" the younger man asked impatiently.

Holiday glared. "Where's the fucking elevator?"

"Past the first row of cubicles, then down the hall to your left." all of the rooms' occupants said in chorus, as though he should've known.

Holiday rolled his eyes. Management. He took his leave after giving the middle finger to anyone who was still paying him any attention. "Thanks a million."

He made his way down the hall and to the elevator door, where he paused a moment, feeling quite strange without his shoes on, but somewhat distracted by his current dilemma. He wasn't exactly sure what the meaning of being dragged up to see the Boss was all about. Obviously, their performance in Kanto had been less than awe-inspiring thus far, and he was well-aware that Kazuo had other feelers in place besides himself to gauge what progress was being made toward their goals with Ash Ketchum, even if he'd continued to report half-truths and omissions. But for some reason, this whole scenario gave off a little more than that. He could take the elevator down, leave Realgam all-together, and force this meeting to take place on his own terms, which he was far more inclined to do, given what he'd suffered so far, or...

He tapped the 'up' arrow button, and smiled.

...he could go up to Kazuo's office and score a little unexpected mono-a-mono grill-time before those base-level stooges caught on. He'd never been one for subtlety, and he saw no reason to start now. The elevator ride was brisk, and not nearly as long as one might've expected from Realgam's immense height. When he found himself outside the double doors, he didn't waste a moment thinking about what he was going to ask, or what excuse he was going to give for arriving without the escort that had so obviously been meant to cow him.

When he pushed them open, he was ripped off his feet instantly, by his outstretched arm, and deposited so harshly on his back that the wind blasted from his lungs. Ten long, hard fingers clasped his neck and dragged him fiercely, inexorably across the floor. With no breath to cry out with, and no ability to bring in more, Holiday found that he scarcely had the wherewithal to resist as two powerful arms vaulted him up, and onto the large ebony desk cracking the dynamic viewing surface with his rag-doll form.

They'd caught up a little faster than he'd imagined they would, Holiday thought, tasting coppery blood in his mouth. He opened his eyes, fully expecting to see the burly grunts standing over him, perhaps one carrying his shoes and his Rattata in each meaty hand.

But it was just Kazuo.

Five-foot-five, skinny as a rail Kazuo, still in his pinstripe suit and silk tie, nearly half a foot shorter than him and almost fifty pounds lighter, had him sprawled out on the table, and had made significant headway towards choking the life out of him. Clumsily, Holiday grabbed for the offending arms. What he was seeing had a very surreal feeling to it after all, and since it all hardly seemed possible; a dreamlike state seemed to wash over him momentarily. His darkening tunnel-vision perspective did little to diminish the snarling visage in his face, and the curious bluish light that seemed to flicker just outside of his close-cropped periphery.

Those arms did not yield to the halfhearted protest, though, and Holiday could hear the tendons creak in his neck, even over the gurgling sound he was making. Eventually, his confused pawing became desperate thrashing, and his legs kicked out desperately to create separation, to little avail.

Somewhat detached, Holiday's whirring consciousness tried to construct a scenario in which this all made sense, but he couldn't. It was just to confusing and suddenly, all too real- all too late. He remembered seeing himself put a gloved palm against Kazuo's chin, in a pathetic effort to push the ferocious man away, then nothing but an ominous blackness, as his eyes rolled back into their sockets.

Far, far away, the Admin registered a sound at the distant end of the room, and though he lapsed into unconsciousness before he realized what it was, it was likely the only thing that saved his life. The four men burst into the room, one laden with Holiday's sneakers and Pokemon, and after a moment of stunned hesitance, flew to their boss in an effort to aid him. As they came rushing up beside him though, they quickly realized the seemingly craven executive hardly needed their assistance and had apparently dealt with his would be attacker with lethal force, from the growing purple bruises around the pink-jacketed Admin's collar.

Their stunned gawking did not amuse Kazuo, who relinquished his hold over Holiday once it became obvious that the wiry administrator would not be getting back up, and threw a grasping hand towards the foremost grunt. The huge man hardly would've had the presence of mind to flinch away from such a blindingly fast motion, even with the realization that Kazuo was capable of such brutality. It wasn't an aggressive strike though; Kazuo simply withdrew the mans concealed firearm from his jacket, held it complacently at his side.

"Uh, boss?" the confused grunt began, still not certain of what was going on. As far as any of them had been told, all the boss had wanted was for Holiday to see him immediately. The connotations had seemed more along the lines of a business write-up, than this, which already reeked suspiciously of murder. Still, he hoped that the CEO would give him an easy out, as opposed to an explanation. They'd busted in here to bring news of Holiday's escape and suddenly, he and all three of his men wanted nothing more than to be out of here and forget they'd ever met the Admin today.

"You should leave." Kazuo said, hardly paying them any mind as he returned his gaze to the sprawled out administrator.

Nobody disagreed with him.

---

Ash roared into the air, all of his anger, and disappointment gushing forth like dragon's fire. He'd missed what was probably going to turn out to be the biggest opportunity of his training career; an honor that came to only a select few outside of the elite four, and a personal invitation from the Champion himself! He just couldn't believe it! How could one person possibly have such miserable luck? He wanted to punch himself in the face. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die -but first, he wanted to utterly destroy Doc.

That slime-ball had the nerve to confront him. The nerve to say that he was better. Judging by the caliber of company that the muscular man kept, Ash could readily assume that Doc's likely estimation of superiority would amount to little more than a momentary distraction, before Ash got on his way.

He sneered into the empty air. Lousy bum. Him and his dumb Pokemon were in for a nasty surprise. He would consummately destroy Doc. He was too caught up to notice it, but a tidal-wave of repressed anger was surging out of him, now. All the discontentment and sorrow he felt at the loss in the Sinnoh League, all of the misplaced, and ultimately unreconciled jealousy and hurt he'd felt towards Brock and Dawn and Max, and all of the muddied, confused insult and offense he'd taken at the hands of Misty, and Gary his two eternal rivals; it all came bubbling back up, not as phantom manifestations of those same feelings, but as something more gruesome and sinister.

The defeat he'd taken at Pokemon Tech- how much like a punch in the gut that had been! -and all the tiny, pin-prick slights and unintentional insults he'd suffered, weathered, and ignored since he'd gotten back. Every small measure of anger and dissatisfaction he'd been forced to swallow- and to him it felt like a lot- was coming out now, whether he liked it or not, in the face of this final straw. He'd missed out on the biggest opportunity of his career and of his life, because of a stupid mistake, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to change it, and nobody to blame but himself.

It didn't exactly leave Ash with a lot of choices. Not any healthy ones, at least. He could either cry in misery and self-loathing- something he was already on the verge of doing, it seemed like, from the watery contents of his eyelashes- or he could do what he planned to: redirect all of that anger at someone who was, by all accounts, as well as his own confession, one-hundred percent deserving of it. Bottled up anger was not a resource Ash often put to use, and he imagined, that was chiefly because he'd never had much of it to begin with. But right now, he was confident, these last few weeks comprised easily the worst period of his life, and even if he had to turn that fact back around on itself and use it as ammunition, he was going to blast his way out of this, though whatever was unfortunate enough to find itself in his way.

He'd had enough. He'd been so understanding of late. So optimistic, even complacent, when all he'd wanted to do from the beginning was thrash and rage and scream. Scream at how unfair it was. How unfair it all was! For weeks now, he'd smiled, when he'd wanted to grimace. He'd nodded when he wanted to shake his head no, and let how he'd really felt go unnoticed beneath the stoic facade he'd tacked on at Gary's suggestion. Because he was a "solo trainer" now. Because he had to be "self-reliant", and "mature", and "sensible" about everything.

Well, screw that, he thought. This situation was hardly sensible, so why the hell should he be! Gary was just a pampered snob who thought he knew everything, but that the hell did he really know? Gary Oak was a wash-up! A phony! Gary stuck with Pokemon Training about as long as it took for him to realize that he was never going to be any good at it, and then gave it all up! As Ash stomped towards the double-doored portal to the address he'd been directed to, he decided that Gary, the instigator in all of this, would be the next destination on his list, once he got this round-trip ass-kicking excursion off to a start by wiping Doc off the map.

He was too furious to give much thought to why the location itself was in the middle of an outdoor commercial strip, or why there were dark green and navy blue posters in the windows. All that mattered to him, as he furiously shoved open the doors, and stomped inside, much to the surprise of every clip-board-laden occupant therein, was that Doc, who sat casually in a folding chair near the counter, was there to meet him.

Ash snorted derisively. "So are you just going to sit there, or are we going to do this?" Doc didn't respond at first, only smiled starkly, as he stood, and forked over a secondary clipboard, which the young trainer took with a confused frown.

"I already filled yours out." Doc commented, writing a long, looping, and illegible signature on the yellow sheet clipped to his own board. "All you gotta do is sign on the dotted line, and our little competition begins."

Ash looked up with a snarl. He wanted nothing more than to pulverize Doc in every capacity that he was able. Any way he could expedite that, was fine with him. He took the offered pen, and scribbled hard onto the bottom of the sheet, even as Pikachu tugged with some concern on his lapel.

Pikachu had quietly let Ash have his snarling rage-dump on the way here, and though now what was actually happening was a bit beyond his comprehension, and though he still couldn't see Doc through the haze of chemical-camouflage, he did understand that there was something unusual going on here. Ash didn't listen though, still mad. Maybe if he had, he'd have noticed the words "Pokemon Corps. Recruitment Office" written down the side of the pen he was holding.

With a smile, Doc took his clip-board and then passed both it and his own over the counter, and to the man behind it, whom Ash only now realized was in military uniform.

"Right this way," the man instructed, gesturing to a door at his side, which Doc ushered him through with a curled arm across his shoulders. There was a man with a set of hair-clippers waiting for them on the other side.

Ash's look of alarm did little to curb Doc's suddenly much more sinister grin. Screw what Holiday would've thought; this plan was gonna work!

---

Misty flicked her pinky from her ear, dismissing the water pooled therein. She'd been trying to rally her Pokemon together for a training exercise, which of course comprised chiefly of getting Gyarados and Kingler to slow up the pace a little, while she coerced the often lazy, if not completely disinterested Marill to join in. It was a constant contest of willpower to keep everyone's head in the same place.

Starmie and Staryu were easy enough to deal with, as they would do pretty much whatever asked of them, whenever, and however. They were docile, and well mannered. Unlike some of her younger Pokemon, who seemed to severely lack discipline. Already, Horsea and Marill were back to their three-way Water Gun match with Corsola, behind her back, as she floated in the pool, looking at Lily. On the flip side of the coin, you had Kingler, who never wanted to do anything but train tirelessly, and Gyarados who refused to be outdone by anyone, and often had to be reigned in to keep them from discouraging or out and out exhausting her other Pokemon It was so hard to find a good balance.

If only she could find a way to motivate the less experienced Pokemon, and at the same time, drive everyone with the same level of pacing and dedication...

"Are you even listening?" Lily snapped suddenly, knifing into her thoughts. "This is like, the fourth time I've repeated myself."

"Um." Misty murmured to herself, trying hard to look past the matter at hand. Eventually, though, she was just forced to shake her head no. "Sorry, what?"

Lily rolled her eyes, and scoffed. "Gary Oak is here to see you."

Misty reared back in open consideration of that for a few moments. She'd expected Tracey, honestly, if anyone from the Oak Reservation was going to come see her, at all. "Gary?"

"Yes. Gary. Gary Oak. You know, the cute one with the swoop haircut-"

"I know who he is." Misty said with a roll of her eyes. Leave it to Lily to turn up the creep-factor again, by paying way too much attention to boys her age. She shook her head disdainfully. "Where is he?"

"In the Aquarium Foyer. Looking over the new construction." Lily said, dismissing herself with that, and leaving the way she'd entered, probably to get back to whatever her and her older sisters were up to.

"Alright!" Misty called out, even though it seemed rather pointless. "Take five!" This would only essentially mean that her Pokemon were free to continue what they had been doing, only now they were free to do it without Misty complaining or trying to redirect their efforts in one way or another. Marill, Horsea, and Corsola kept squirting water at each other oblivious to the fact that she'd even been there, Kingler and Gyarados stopped cutting laps tirelessly around the pool, and went over toward where Politoed and Goldeen were meandering about at the shallow end of the pool, of the pool, not to relax of course, just to flaunt a bit before getting back to it, while Starmie and Staryu, the only two who really seemed to have been engaged with her, being foremost obedient to a fault, simply froze in place.

She lifted herself out of the water with a heave, and put both her bare feet onto the tile, waiting for the excess moisture to drip away, before she committed herself to toweling off. She was wearing her favorite swimsuit today, an all-white one-piece affair that she liked for no other reason than that her sisters abjectly despised it. As she patted the moisture from herself, and gathered her belongings, throwing her blue jacket over her shoulders, and snapping her pokegear and keys into either pocket, she marched slowly toward the gymnasium doors. She wondered why Gary was here, precisely. Maybe something had come up.

She shook her head as she went past her office, and decided to cut through it, instead, and take a more round about path to the Aquarium exhibit. She supposed that with things going the way they had been recently, she was just looking for meaning where there really wasn't any. Even if something had come up for Tracey, and that was why Gary was here, it didn't mean there was any cause for alarm or anything.

She blew out a sigh when she thought about it. She was still suffering from the aftershocks of Ash's return to Kanto. Almost every day since he'd been back, she'd heard something new concerning the young trainer that either made her furious, shook her nerves, or out and out worried her. Somehow, she'd been subconsciously waiting to hear news that Ash had caused some sort of disaster, or had befallen one, since he'd left Cerulean City to go train with the Elite Four- something she could still scarcely believe! -and every little irregularity somehow seemed to point to that. It had been quiet of late, in spite of the bustle. Too quiet.

Misty screwed up her face, as she popped through the door, and into the privacy of the Leader's Office.

"What am I, his Mom?" she snarled aloud, as she batted away the set of fingerless biking gloves that say on her desk, refusing to believe that they had crept into her regular wardrobe, and denying her impulse to put them on. "Stupid kid can take care of himself." she said, almost mantra-like, for this was not the first time she'd repeated those words.

Abstaining from the fingerless gloves probably would've seemed a moot point in regards to the next item she went for: Ash's League Expo cap, which she put over her damp hair, and turned to the side so that her pony-tail poked through. "He could at least call once in a while."

She frowned at herself in the mirror as she rested her glove-less palm on the doorknob into the adjoining hall. Not because she thought she looked bad, but because she felt suddenly much like what she'd just proclaimed herself not to be. She gave herself a nasty look, as if to say 'knock it off' and then strode outside.

She met Gary and the assembly of crewmen who were installing the view-port for the new super-high pressure tank in the Aquarium wing. He was giving directions to a pair of jib-crane operators who were installing a fifteen foot tall convex lens into a plexiglass recess in the massive entry wall. He wasn't wearing a hard-hat, she noticed and that was probably why her sister had recognized him. He didn't seem to be there for any real reason, other than what he was doing.

Misty leaned back and took in the spectacle, wondering how on earth they'd managed to get the heavy machinery inside. Then, she remembered, there were still sections of this wing of the building that had no walls.

As Gary backed away, she approached him tentatively. "You wanted to see me?"

She had seen a lot of Gary during her trips with Ash. Gary had been Ash's principal rival back then, of course and had seemed to have all the notoriety and success while Ash struggled to find any. She hadn't had any reason to assume that she would find different, where the young Oak was concerned, even if Tracy had talked much recently of his apparent transformation into young adulthood but she was certainly surprised when he turned to face her.

In a way, it seemed Gary still managed to horde all the things Ash lacked. Like an inverse reflection of the impetuous youth, Gary struck her immediately as the button-down sort when he turned to face her, with surprisingly little of his former smugness or ego. A certain bravado was still there, certainly, as she imagined it must've been with his grandfather before it had turned into the eccentricity of old age, but there was no sneer or self-satisfied smirk, where there once would have been. It was easy to see that Gary was a professional now, much like herself. He was cool and collected and if he was pleased with himself and the smart figure he cut in his stainless white lab-coat and slacks (and she was sure that he was, somewhere deep down, of course) he didn't make a huge show out of it.

"Yeah, just wanted to get this paperwork sorted out with you." Gary explained, pointing two fingers at the end of an outstretched arm towards the ongoing work. He thrust out a stacked pile of pink and yellow carbon-copy slips pinned to a clipboard towards her with his other hand. "It was pretty short notice, but I think it should meet your needs pretty well."

Misty glanced over the forms, giving them precursory review before signing them, with a pen she produced from her jacket pocket. Her sisters made the big financial decisions, but everything had to have her signature, since as the Gym's leader, she bore sole responsibility for any decision that concerned it.

"I'm just surprised that you guys were able to put it together so fast for us." Misty replied as she handed back the forms. "I can't imagine that this sort of thing is common." She'd gotten word out to professor Oak only five or six days ago that she might like to put together a deep-sea exhibit in her gymnasium, and that she'd like the labs help designing and filling it. The professor had, of course been thrilled with the idea, as apparently, no one had ever done such such a thing. Now here they were, already half-way to completion.

Gary shrugged. "More common than you might think. The fact that I was able to do most of the specification work myself allowed me to be a little more frugal than I might've had to be about getting the components. The piece that's going in right now used to be part of a submersible's view-port. A little work with the high-speed buffer, and it ought to be good to go."

Misty pulled her lips to the side, taking note of his use of the personal pronoun. "So this was your design, then?"

Gary nodded. "Yup."

Misty decided to quiz him a little bit, just to see if that was the truth. "So, won't the rounded surface of the pane make the Relicanth look way bigger than they actually are? Like a magnifying glass?

Gary nodded. "Yep. That's the reason for the pane that was installed yesterday." He pointed to the recess into which the massive lens was gradually being placed and would eventually be adhered. It was an even more massive plexiglass dome with a concave hollow on the outside, which seemed to be specifically shaped to accept the new lens. "Because of the outside curve of the secondary pane, the light coming from the inside of the tank will be bent back to it's original angle before it hits the eye of the viewer, so actually it'll be more like two magnifying glasses pointed at one another. Basically, it'll look like a flat window from the outside, but in actuality, it'll be an eleven-foot thick dome- able to hold back the massive pressure inside the tank, but as clear as a single sheet of glass.

She'd already figured that bit out on her own, but she kept it to herself. The benefits of the design were a little more complex than that, and he'd dumbed it down significantly for her benefit, but she was satisfied with that answer.

With a smile of her own, to let him know that she wasn't trying to be as mean as she sounded, she cut to the heart of her curiosity on the matter. "So, how come it's you coming out to see me, instead of Tracy?"

Gary matched her smile inch for inch. "I guess its just a matter of interest," he explained, evidently taking no offense. "My work is -rather, was with fossils. Up until recently, it was believed that Relicanth were extinct, so, there's a bit of overlap there between the paleontological and the behavioral. I asked my Grandpa to work on this project."

Misty nodded. Fair enough. "Do you work with Relicanth much, then?"

"Three of the Relicanth that'll be going into this tank when it's finished belong to me, actually." Gary said, perhaps a bit of his old boastfulness showing through.

"Which is great, because up until now, we've had basically no way to simulate their natural environment. We've been getting by with letting them swim around in the river-beds on Grandpa's reservation, which is fine, I mean, technically they can get along there alright, but it hardly simulates their natural environment: Relicanth live near the bottom of the ocean, after all, where the pressure is enormous. Once your aquarium is finished, my Relicanth are going to be very happy." Misty thought she saw a very Ash-like quality in the follow-up, though. Gary too, had an intensely caring nature for his Pokemon, deep down. Once again, Misty wondered if everyone from Pallet Town was like that, perhaps. Some quality to the place that just lent people such a kind nature. She figured that made sense. Everyone she knew from Pallet was foremost kind.

Gary's continued conversation snapped her out of her contemplation. "Besides, think of the significance this has! This will be the first time anyone will have ever observed a Relicanth in anything close to it's natural environment. Up until now, scientists have only ever observed Relicanth in shallow water-conditions. It's possible that we've only scratched the surface of their behavioral patterns. You're making a huge contribution to Tracy and Grandpa's research. I think that's why they were so thrilled to help you."

Misty turned the corners of her lips down, and nodded in appreciation of the gravity of the transaction. "What about you, and your research?" she asked coyly.

"Well, Relicanth is a living fossil. Literally. They exist now, almost exactly as they existed millions and millions of years ago. I stand to learn plenty! Because we know that so little has changed about them, the kind of inferences I'll be able to make about their comfort in this tank environment, will paint a good picture of what their environment and ecology was like, going all the way back to the Devonian era. If everything goes off without a hitch, I might be able to publish a piece about it in Water Pokemon Quarterly."

Misty's eyes sprang wide, skepticism renewed. "You write for WPQ?" Water Pokemon Quarterly was a major publication!

Gary Nodded. "Yep. I did an article last year about how the egg-laying habits of West and East sea Shellos may indicate that they are actually two convergent species of Pokemon, due to Thorson's Rule."

"Oh yeah, I think I did read that," Misty said after a moment of thought. "You wrote about how you think the two different types of Shellos might actually be two separate kinds of Pokemon entirely, that just happen to of evolved similar traits?"

"Yes, their brooding habits suggest they're actually much further removed than just the East and West seas of Sinnoh." Gary explained, summing up the article. "Thorson's rule states that invertebrates from lower latitudes, will always lay more eggs at a time than invertebrates from higher latitudes, and such is the difference between the two variations."

Misty nodded her head, showing that she understood. "I didn't realize that it was you that wrote it, though." She rubbed her fingertips against her chin. "I'm pretty sure I would have recognized your name."

Gary's smooth smile waned somewhat, and he squinted one eye, as though slightly pained by the admittance. "Actually, I use a pseudonym when I publish my research articles. I go by G. Robur, instead of G. Oak-It's the scientific name for Oak."

When she gave him a questioning look and asked why, he heaved a sigh. Just for a moment, she saw his confident facade give way completely. "Well, it's just that it's hard to be seen as a credible research scientist, when your last name is Oak, but your first name isn't Samuel. Sometimes I think people see me as a coat-tail rider." He managed to collect a sort of wry smile, as if unwilling to be so brazenly self-deprecating all at once. "And other times, I think that it might make them feel a little bit intimidated by me; like they have no choice but to usher me along, and pat me on the back because of who my grandpa is, and I don't really like that idea either."

Misty shrugged, and offered her honest evaluation. "Tracey seems to think your work is impressive." She nodded towards the tank. "I don't think anyone will be able to deny that this is, either."

Gary smiled charmingly then, as if her compliment had turned his mood one-eighty. She was a little surprised when his grin actually coaxed out a smile to her own lips, along with a pinkness to her cheeks. It was a very Gary Oak grin. "I'm flattered, really. It's just that honestly, you have no idea how hard it is to stand out, when you live in the shadow of someone who's contributed as much to the field as my Grandpa has."

Misty considered disagreeing with him- that she did, in fact, have a fairly good idea of what it was like to live in someone else's shadow. Three such shadows in fact! As much as she hated to admit it, her sisters were big-time up-and-comers in the field of Pokemon coordinating, and while that particular field was not her own, it did make her sisters, who were now two-time ribbon cup winners, many times contest finalists, hugely successful performers, and very profitable businesswomen, a much bigger deal than she was. She would have to elevate the gym to untold heights to compare to their breakout success, and even if she did, it would likely only add to their clout while only moderately contributing to her own because of their association with it and her. Misty was always going to be the littlest Waterflower, and thought she wasn't sure she'd ever like the idea, there came a time when you just had to do your own thing, and stop worrying about it.

Still, she could tell that Gary, like Ash, was little ate up inside that his career hadn't taken him quite as far or as high as he'd liked, so she left the matter alone. Besides, her sisters might've been budding superstars, but she could still whip them in a battle, while Professor Oak practically founded modern understanding of Pokemon and had contributed more to science than almost three generations of his peers, Gary included. She was in a similar boat, but it was hardly the same. She imagined that it was probably pretty daunting. Before she could even think of commenting, though, he decided to steer the conversation away from the subject.

"I heard Ash rolled through town." Gary said, indicating her hat with an outstretched index finger. "Did he lose a bet to you or something?"

She glanced up, and flicked the brim of the cap, with a growing smirk on her face. She deciding after a moment that she would rather keep the details to herself, though, even if it was only because she knew she'd be in for an earful if Gary ended up giving Ash a hard time over giving her his hat. She didn't imagine that Gary had changed so significantly that he wouldn't take any opportunity that came his way to tease his long-time rival. Though maybe she was more worried that someone might put together the significance of the item to her, and embarrass the hell out of her, rather than any concern for her best friend.

"Or something." she acknowledged ambiguously. "He's training on Mandarin Island right now." She decided not to say expressly why, figuring that if Gary didn't already know, that she wouldn't say.

Gary's smirk at that, told her that she'd probably given him all the information he'd require. "Well, at least he's back on the road again, instead of moping around Pallet Town. Finally training solo now, too." Gary said with a shrug, and she felt that his expression suddenly seemed a little too self-satisfied, once more akin to the old Gary that she'd known so long ago.

In a self-aggrandizing motion, he folded his arms behind his head, and took the conversation in a much unexpected direction. "He tell you who gave him the idea?"

Misty felt her eyebrows flatten out in the face the leading, open-ended question. She was pretty much resigned to the decision, but she still sure as hell didn't think it was a great one. All in all, the choice had probably cost Ash, and would continue to cost him more than any other shortsighted decision of his career, nevermind the potential gain. It seemed like it had come deadly close to costing him his friends (and probably would have, if she hadn't been there to intervene last week) along with his slowly renewing self-esteem, something she'd never have believed that the boy would have risked himself.

As calculating as she could be, she had always understood that there was a limit to pragmatism, especially where Ash was concerned, and in spite of how much things had changed without her over the years, she hadn't been entirely willing to believe that Ash had come to the conclusion on his own. Now she understood.

Though, If Gary thought it would be appropriate to toot his own horn to her over it, he was sadly mistaken. She decided to play it cool, though, instead of doing what she wanted to do.

Rather than out and out threaten Gary, she decided to play it just as coyly as he had. Curling the knuckles of her right fist, she brought them to her opposing hand cracked them loudly. She didn't know if Tracey had shared the nature of her secret hobby with Gary or not, since it seemed likely that Daisy had also pressured him into an oath of secrecy, but from the sudden look of intense concentration that Gary put into the task being performed, and the speed at which the flirtatious smile on his face vanished without a trace, she learned much.

"No, but if I find out who did," she promised casually, "they're in for a world of pain."

Gary chuckled uneasily. "Just wondering."

---

Holiday woke up with a a head-ache, too bleary-eyed to see where he was. He tried to bring a hand up to his head, and stabilize his dizziness but found that it was stuck fast. Once his vision cleared up, he realized that it was cuffed to the chair he was sitting in. He looked over to his off hand. It wasn't, so he brought it to his head to complete the work meant for the primary, since he could hardly think of what to do until that matter was resolved.

"Finally awake?" A voice stated as much as asked him, and he was subjected to a sudden strike to his chest from an extended leg, that left him sitting back in the seat with the imprint of a finely cobbled heel in his chest.

Holiday looked up into the face of his employer, who still seemed for all the world as unthreatening as he always had, in spite of the recollection of why and where he was came back to him, as the pain in his chest made him forget the pain in his head. He brought his hand down from his temple to rub at his chest. "I had this weird dream that I was all alone, and I was rolling a big poke ball...and there was an Ekans in a vest." he drawled sarcastically, as he let his hand fall back into his lap. His neck didn't feel very good either, so he just gave up trying to rub at his aches for now.

"You've always been quite the comedian, haven't you, Holiday?" Kazuo asked him, leafing through a manilla folder, though he hardly seemed amused.

"Not really." Holiday replied, casually. "I just thought 'witty sense of humor' would round out my resume."

Kazuo snapped the folder shut, with a glare. "Tell me a little bit about what you did before you came into my employ, Holiday."

"Aw, you know." Holiday began dismissively, slapping his thigh. "Graduate school, then tramped around Hoenn for a while."

"You're lying."

"Of course I'm lying. Do I look like the sort of guy who'd willingly ride in a cattle-car?" Holiday snorted.

"Is this some sort of game to you?"

"I usually don't play the sort of games you need hand-cuffs for." Holiday rolled his eyes, but then paused, taking an awkward look at his boss. "Not that I'm implying anything-

"Shut your fucking mouth!"

Holiday brought his lips together tightly as the muzzle of an auto-loading pistol was put to his forehead. He didn't close his eyes in the face of the lethal threat, but he did shut up.

"How long have you been in contact with them?" Kazuo asked plainly.

"With who?" Holiday asked at once.

He felt the mechanical action of Kazuo pulling back the hammer with his thumb, as he repeated the question, and it brought a slight waver to his voice, as the administrator repeated his own.

"How long have you been in contact with the PLF, Holiday? How long have they known about our guest?" Kazuo painfully ground the protruding barrel into Holiday's head.

Holiday's head was a flurry, once he'd absorbed the question, and put it into proper order. "What are you talking about?" All the pieces were knocked astray again as the grip of the pistol collided with his cheekbone so hard that it made his ears ring.

"Let me ask my first question again: What did you do before you came into my employ, Holiday?" Kazuo asked, careful to place rigid emphasis and timing on the name of the man he was interrogating.

The admin paused for a minute, grasping for the answer in his jumbled up thoughts. "I-I was an intern, following my post-graduate work."

"Where?"

"Silph Co." Holiday responded, holding his fingertips gingerly over the area he'd been struck, partially to caress the growing bruise, and partially to shield himself from further abuse.

"Doing what, in detail?"

"I worked in the Technical Machine Labs. I did keynote research for four different projects while I was there."

"And what became of those projects, Holiday?"

"The company dropped them."

"For what reason?"

"Competitor companies put out similar products before the projects could be brought into market production."

"And why was that?"

Holiday gave him a plaintive look, suddenly realizing what this was all about. "You know why."

Kazuo nodded. "Because you were never really hoping to find a job at Silph Co." The stern little man crossed his arms. "You're a corporate spy, Holiday. You leaked pertinent details about those projects to competitors, in exchange for money."

Holiday, who made no move to deny it, leaned a bit further back in his seat. He wished he could cross his arms. He didn't suppose that it would make any difference if he mentioned that it was likely that Cipher itself had made no small fortune on the disseminated findings, or at least gotten a comparative leg up from Silph Co. Global's floundering sales.

As dead to rights caught as he'd ever been, Holiday stared openly at the man before him, wondering just how detailed to contents of that folder must've been. He figured that it was more than likely that the buyers in at least one of those instances of espionage had been an agent in the employ of Cipher itself.

"Do I have your attention?" Kazuo asked him.

"You had my attention when you stuck the gun in my face, boss." Holiday noted, beginning to regain his footing a bit. On cue, the weapon was pressed against his forehead again, and he frowned, knowing that he'd brought it on himself.

"Good. Now tell me how long you've been in contact with the PLF."

Holiday sighed. "Six months."

Kazuo nodded, and tried not to show that he was perturbed by that notion. That exceeded his time-tables by a great deal. The team had only come into the possession of the sample eight weeks ago, after all. There was no way Holiday could've had that sort of foresight, even if he did know about the guest. Hell, that was well before Holiday had even been involved with Team Nebula, and even he had never imagined that they would find such a thing.

"In what capacity?" Kazuo asked.

"Capacity?" Holiday dared ask, gaining a bit of courage from Kazuo's slackening grip, though it was renewed instantly as the question was poised again wordlessly.

"Just scoping them out! I'm just looking for someone, is all." Holiday blurted out, though he really wasn't sure why he was telling the truth here. He hadn't told the truth so far. It had been six projects, not four, and he'd actually been following the PLF in one 'capacity' or another for nearly a year, now.

This apparently threw the executive for a loop. He removed the handgun from Holiday's head, and though he continued to poise it threateningly toward his face, his aggression seemed to dissipate some.

"Who?" Kazuo was quick to ask.

Deciding to roll with it, Holiday just told him the truth. "A researcher I did my graduate studies with. Name's Ein."

Kazuo recognized the name as being tied to some of the research involving the Shadow Pokemon project, and perked. "Why?" The executive prompted, now seeming more curious than anything.

Holiday, in spite of himself smiled. "No honor amongst thieves." The matter was personal, and he hoped that we would not have to go into more detail than that. Deciding it best to take the lead, he prompted a query of his own. "This wouldn't happen to be about that PLF press-release tape would it?"

"Yes." Kazuo said venomously. "It would."

Holiday understood now. Kazuo thought that whatever had been said during the press release seemed too well informed regarding this 'guest' and was now looking for a mole inside the organization. The admin sat forward in his seat, knowing there was very little he could do to clear his name as suspect number one. "What do I have to say, to make this water under the bridge?"

Kazuo opened up his mouth to speak, but Holiday, perhaps a bit too forward, cut him off. "There's no way either of us can prove that I've done more or less than you think I have. I've had de facto control over all ingoing an outgoing data traffic through the company server since I started. You wouldn't be able to find any evidence to condemn me, because I would have erased it as soon as it was created. Ispo facto, any evidence I might present, would likewise be subject to me tampering with it, and inadmissible."

"So you're telling me that I should shoot you in the face now, rather than try to get to the bottom of this." Kazuo said, mocking the admin's lazy tone, once again bringing the firearm to bear.

"Well, that said, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence." Holiday said weakly.

"Enlighten me."

"Well, for one, I've been overseas."

"So have the PLF. That hardly excuses you. Try again."

"I don't know if you knew this or not, but, I'm actually pretty well paid by the company. Six figure salary and everything. My internship at Silph Co was unpaid. As in zip, zilch, nada."

"You expect me to believe that you're content enough with this job that you'd have no reason to betray company secrets?" Kazuo said with a certain venom. "That money is your sole motive?"

"I was sort of hoping you might." Holiday shrugged. It fit the bill from his perspective.

"I'm not convinced. And you're taxing my already thin patience, Holiday."

Holiday sighed. "Okay, how about this: I have no fucking idea who the guest even i-" Distracted somewhat by the questioning glare that Kazuo laid over him, Holiday almost didn't see the blinking red light atop Kazuo's desk. Somehow, it still struck a nerve, in spite of the dark situation "-What the fuck is that? Jeeze boss, I thought the mug full of pens was strange."

Kazuo looked away from the admin, to the same blinking beacon on his desk, blinking out a Morse code message.

"D-E-S-I-S-T-N-O-W."

Holiday, who'd been working on his hand-cuff for a while now, finally popped it loose. He thought for a moment that he might grab the gun out of Kazuo's hand while his back was turned, but he decided that he would probably lose that particular engagement, what with the strength and speed Kazuo had already been shown to possess. He wasn't fond of the idea of getting choked out again, at any rate. He considered running, but that didn't seem all that wise either. He was fast, and could probably at least outrun Kazuo in a dead heat, but he could still take a bullet in the back as easy as anybody. Instead, he just continued to sit quietly in the chair, as Kazuo turned to face him once more.

His jaw firmly set, Kazuo withdrew the gun, and laid it shakily on the table, his apprehension drawn from a new source. Holiday's admittance seemed believable enough. Particularly that Holiday had used the word 'who' instead of 'what'. It didn't matter at this point, anyways. Any concern he might've had dissipated the second he'd translated the message.

If it was going to end his problem for him or not, Kazuo wasn't sure. What bothered him more than that, was that it seemed to know precisely what was going on up here. He didn't let on, though. At least not outwardly.

Principally, what he needed right now, was an ally. Not out of fear, necessarily, but out of sensibility. Holiday had all of the intellect and sensibility he would require in such a person, and it wouldn't do to drive any more of a wedge between himself and a man who was clearly going to look to serve the better of two masters when the time came, if his history was any indication.

He made a gesture of concession toward the administrator. "Water under the bridge."

Holiday, at once, stood from his seat, and tossed the handcuffs onto the table beside the gun, as though he were simply relieve to be able to stand from the uncomfortable chair again. When Kazuo gave him a an incredulous look, he wrung his hands. "I have very supple wrists, boss, what can I say?"

The two seemed to share a look then. Holiday wouldn't forget today, not by a long shot, but for now, he thought it best to just smirk and carry on just as he had before, for lack of a better plan. Kazuo, likewise, hardly saw the matter at rest.

"I need you to get sub-level. Down into the Reaction labs. There's something that needs done." Kazuo stated simply.

Holiday, quirking a brow, leaned against the edge of the desk, at a healthy distance to complain. "Didn't you say those levels were sealed off a few weeks ago? It could take me a days work my way through."

"Then you should get started right away." Kazuo stated coldly, returning at last to his seat, a place where Holiday was much more comfortable with him being. "Let me know when you're there." From a drawer, the executive produced his belt, and tossed it to him.

After buckling it on, Holiday left, ostensibly in much the same mood he'd entered. The ever-smug administrator pulled open the heavy rosewood doors and looked at the security guard to either side of it with a sneer as he passed outward. "Lookit you turds." He said mockingly, pointing to both as he revolved in step. "You look so surprised to see me right now."

They did look pretty shocked to see him leave. On his feet, at least.

He thumbed the button for the elevator, and as he took the long ride down into Realgam's below-ground research labs, he considered the events that had just transpired, with a ginger rub of his swollen cheek, and an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders. Then suddenly, if to ease the wound-up tension in his chest, he burst into laughter and set his mind into contemplating the tools he would need for the job.

---

"Ritchie!" She shouted, "Ritchie, it's him! Oh my goodness it's him!" She pointed out over the wharf at the maroon-haired Champion at the far end.

She'd met Ritchie on the ferry, and decided that she rather liked him. He was obviously a skilled battler after all, since he also had a black invitation just like her. Also, Ritchie hadn't recognized her, unlike umpteen other trainers on the boat. Ritchie had put two and two together when he'd heard some ace-trainer scrambling around on deck, asking everyone if they'd seen the Steven Stone grant-winner hiding anywhere, and she'd conspicuously hunched her shoulders, but he wasn't saying anything, and that took a considerable amount of the pressure off

Normally she would have jumped at the opportunity to battle, but today was special. She was going to be battling in front of Lance after all, and she needed all of her Pokemon at 110%! She'd be damned if she was going to show up tired.

"You don't have to scream, I'm right here." Ritchie said, with a chuckle, as she shook his arm. He wondered if it was less a friendly gesture to direct his attention, than it was she needed physical support to remain standing. Her knees looked rubbery.

He smiled. He almost didn't believe her when she said her name was Uranium. They made fast friends, though. He'd spent the last few hours just talking to her about the ins and outs of high-level battling. She looked like she never got tired of the stuff. "Looks like the ferry is just about docked. We'll be down there soon enough. I'm betting Lance will want to talk to us."

"Holy crap, you think?" Uranium yelped in a mixture of excitement and dread. Ritchie's attention, however, was drawn across the flabbergasted girl to the burly, frowning man on the opposite side of her.

"I don't see Ash anywhere." The huge man commented, in his impossibly gravely voice. "Do you Chikorita?"

"Chika!" the grass type chirped, in the negative.

Ritchie perked, and then tilted his head. "Ash? Ash Ketchum?" Ritchie spun to the rail again, to survey the wharf. Various ship-yard workers coming and going. Landing crew, tying down the ferry, and the five commanding figures standing on the steps to the north, awaiting their arrival. "What are you talking about, Silver? Ash was supposed to be here?"

Uranium turned to look at Silver as well. She'd decided that she really didn't like him, pretty much as fast as she'd decided she liked Ritchie. Silver gave off that vibe that just said how surly of an old bastard he was, and every time he opened his mouth, he let out an obnoxious, patronizing laugh and called someone by a demeaning name. He called Ritchie 'Half-pint' almost exclusively and had immediately dubbed her 'Bang-bang' when Ritchie had shared the name his new acquaintance. Still, the mention of Ash caught her off guard.

As they disembarked from the boat, the huge man scratched his head.

"Lance told me he was invited." Silver explained, with some concern.

"How do you guys know Ash Ketchum?" Uranium asked suddenly, surprising the both of them.

"Uh." Silver murmured with a slightly lost expression.

"I competed against him in the Kanto League a few years ago." Ritchie explained. "Why? Do you know him?"

"Yea, I just met him a week or two ago." Uranium said. "Battled him at Pokemon Tech."

This of course, ignited a flurry of questions between the three of them, but all of it took a back-seat when they met up with Lance, flanked on either side by Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, and Koga.

Silver, hardly starstruck, was of course the first to speak. "I thought you you had invited Ash?" he asked immediately, and Uranium felt that she could not have been the only one to glare in response to his rude comment.

Lance hardly seemed bothered, though, and dismissed the lack of manners as though it were a unnoticeable. "I had. I assumed he'd be with you three."

"He's not." Silver said, bluntly.

Lance pulled his lips to the side, in a moment of genuine displeasure, but it passed almost as quickly as it had come into view. "That's unfortunate. I was sure he would show."

Silver only grunted, and didn't seem satisfied with that.

"Perhaps he put his time to better use." Lance said sincerely. So sincerely, in fact, that Uranium almost found herself believing it, if only for as long as it took her to realize that this was an elite four training camp, and there was, in fact, no possible better use of a trainers time, than being here.

Silver just grunted again, without actually responding to that one way or another and rolled his eyes. "No reason for me to be here, then. Back to work." He said dismissively, and turned around to depart the scene. Then he stopped short, as if remembering his manners. "Half-pint," he acknowledged in parting. "Bang-bang."

Uranium snorted in the face of his entirely unwanted nickname, but noticed that Ritchie seemed uneasy with his sudden departure, having evidently expected him to stay. "Er. See ya around, Silver."

Silver only waved casually over his shoulder, as his Chikorita chirped a farewell past the man's spiny mane of gunmetal gray hair.

Agatha was the first to scoff in the silence. "That oaf never did have any manners. You really should pick better friends, Lance."

Uranium was about to nod her agreement, but Silver it seemed, was not quite out of earshot, and laughed that obnoxious laugh of his. "Hey, I heard that granny!"

"Good." Agatha offered, hardly raising her voice in kind, though Ritchie could see a smile working it's way into the deep lines of her face, as if to suggest that she didn't feel nearly so harshly about Silver as she had proclaimed. Bruno and Lorelei chuckled easily, and Koga, a very traditional Kantonese man, said nothing, and remained focused on the ground.

When Silver's flame-patterned trench-coat faded into the crowd, Uranium turned back to look the Champ in the eye.

She felt the corner of her lip quiver as the man she had idolized for most of her life, the single biggest figure in Pokemon battling, as far as half the world was concerned, laid his hand on her shoulder, and gave it a consoling pat. He had his other hand on Ritchie's, but she didn't give a crap. This moment was hers alone.

"Well, at any rate, we're glad to have two trainers to compete with this year."

She felt herself nod ignorantly in response to that, and she had to muscle down a squeal from somewhere.

"Ritchie, I hear you did well in the Silver conference this year." Lance mentioned, with a smile.

"Yep. Finalist." Ritchie nodded.

"And the 'Stone grant-winner. From Unova, no less. You must be quite something." He said, already seeming as impressed as she'd hoped. "We're always excited to cooperate and compete with our peers overseas. It's an honor to finally meet you."

He stood back to his full height and nodded, before sticking a thumb over his shoulder, towards the league sports-center that seemed to fill the island's horizon. "Right this way, and we'll get you two all set up."

Ritchie felt like he was about to bust with excitement, and he nearly took off after the receding elite and their champion at full speed, but Uranium desperately caught hold of his arm again.

When he looked back to her, her expression made her seem like she was about to burst into tears. She let out a long warbling moan what seemed like discomfort, and teetered a bit on her feet, so much so that she practically fell against him.

"Hey!" he whispered. "Are you alright?"

"Honored." Uranium whimpered, finally regaining her footing. "Lance said he was honored. To meet. With me!" she managed between labored gasps.

"You really need to straighten out your priorities." Ritchie commented with a chuckle and a roll of his eyes.

Uranium blushed a deep scarlet, and shooed away his attention with that, taking up stride behind him. It wasn't long before she was giggling to herself, though.

Lance! Honored! To meet her!

---

Ash found himself stranded amidst the crush of people, with only the snarling hair-trimmers before him, and an ocean of cavalry-hatted shouting muscle behind him. There was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

He yelped as he was thrown into the upholstered chair, his shoulders pinned down when he tried to stand back up again. He demanded to know what the big idea was just a moment too late, though, when a buzzing sound passed over his head, and a huge clump of his own hair landed on his lap. He let out another horrified squeak and redoubled his efforts to escape the grasping hands, to no avail.

The moment his forced haircut was complete, he was jerked into an upright position and then stretched commandingly into all manner of exaggerated poses as a measuring tape was held to his features. It felt like before he could even blink, an olive set of fatigues, folded neatly beneath a set of black boots and white accoutrements was forced into the awaiting grasp he'd intended to be a confused, pleading gesture.

When he asked what to do with it, two of the men in cavalry caps were as deep in his personal space as anyone had ever been, screaming into his face, asking in return if he was stupid in a variety of not so kind ways, and propelling him with the force of their shouts, as much as guiding him into the changing room.

Too stunned to do anything else and too frightened besides, Ash rapidly removed his own clothing, and stuffed it hard into his backpack, before donning the new attire. He didn't dare waste the time required to look over at Pikachu's confused coo, as he laced the boots for fear that someone would be into the changing room after him, making sure he wasn't wasting time.

When he emerged from the other door, someone was shouting and shoving him along again, and eventually he found himself standing in a row of other people, behind the building. He was very confident that he wouldn't have had any idea what to do or how to stand, if everyone wasn't already standing at attention , legs perfectly spaced in accordance with the footprints painted onto the pavement. Very willing at this point to avoid being howled at again, he did his best impression of the others and strictly avoided moving.

That didn't stop them, though. Two meaty hands shot out as soon as the first hunched-over snarling drill-instructor crossed his path, as though simply looking for someone to harass. They roughly pulled at his collar, and pushed him sharply back.

"Fix that lapel! Tuck in your shirt, puke! You're a disgrace! And where is your fucking cover?"

"C-cover?" Ash managed, still barely able to push words past his lips, as he rapidly flattened down the collar of his fatigue, and set to stuffing it into his belt. "Wh-wh-"

The man lurched violently towards him, practically headbutting him as he pushed himself nose to nose with Ash! "I'll ask the questions puke! And don't let me hear another word come out of your mouth unless it's sir! Understood?"

Ash nodded rapidly to show that he did, but apparently that was unacceptable as well, since the instructor immediately let him know that he could not hear Ash's brains rattle, nor was he psychic.

"Sir!" Ash said quickly there-after, forgoing the obvious 'yes'. That seemed like it was enough to satisfy him. He would've let out a sigh of relief at that, but it seemed like there could be another instructor watching him at any time, and it was probably one of the things that would earn him another grilling, so he held it in, miserably.

When he finally dared look around, careful to keep his eyes forward, he spotted Doc, standing across from him , opposite to the line he was standing in. He met eyes with the Admin, and was surprised to find that he too was wearing the green fatigues, and was taking a tongue-lashing of his own. To Ash's consternation though he seemed to be eating it up. He stood there with rigidity, and confidence as they blasted away at him from all sides, in stark contrast to the shock and obvious discomfort that was still making his heart beat fast.

A sound drew his attention away, though, and when his head snapped to the side, he was shoved roughly from behind by another unseen drill-instructor, and straightened reflexively. A huge man strode into view soon enough, towering over him and everyone else, but especially him. A shock of yellow spikes above a buzz-cut trim couldn't have been anyone else.

"My name is First Lieutenant Surge, and I am your senior drill instructor. From now on you will speak only when spoken to, the last word out of your filthy holes when you are called upon will be "Sir", or there will be hell to pay! Do you babies understand that?"

There was a chorus of 'Yes sir's from most of the people standing at attention, but it seemed halfhearted. Ash hardly dared to open his mouth, and was jostled harshly for his hesitant silence.

"Bullshit, I can't hear you!" Lt. Surge complained, raising his voice an octave, and nearly startling Ash off of his feet, as he turned to survey his side of the inspection line. The lieutenant was an enormous man, far larger than anyone he'd ever met on his journey. He remembered Surge from before, but meeting him like this did not seem to compare to the practically friendly engagement on the Pokemon battlefield all those years ago.

"Yes sir!" Ash bellowed.

The Lieutenant moved along just as before, his stride spaced and even, arms tight at his sides. "If you disgusting pukes leave my command, if you survive recruit training, you will be soldiers; efficient and skilled members of an elite Kanto defense corps. But until that day you are nothing. You are the absolute lowest form of life on this planet. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized, undisciplined pieces of Dunsparse shit!"

The Lieutenant stopped to let that sink in, and it did. All around him, everyone seemed to frown at that. Ash almost gasped when a drill instructor slapped a fatigue lid over his buzzed head, and pushed the bill down over his forehead, but he held it in.

"You will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no inequality here. In my eyes you are all equally worthless. None of you are beautiful or special or unique. Here you will only be differentiated by your will to continue, and your ability to perform. Your charming personality means exactly dick."

Ash felt Doc's glare fall powerfully on him from across the way, but he tried not to look back. He had a feeling that he was still being watched.

"My orders are simply to weed out all whiners, sissies, crybabies, wimps, or wusses who do not have the fortitude serve in the Pokemon Corps! Do you maggots understand that?"

"Yes sir!" the entire platoon shouted.

"Then Fall in!"

Ash felt his panic somehow elevate at that moment, as everyone strode after the lieutenant towards a bus waiting at the end of the parking lot, and he found himself desperately wanting to run in the opposite direction. But he saw instructors herding those who seemed hesitant, and knew that he was hardly going to slip away.

For the first time he seemed to notice Pikachu whining into his ear, obviously confused. "Pikapiii."

It didn't sound accusing, but he almost couldn't help but hear it that way. He swallowed hard.

"Pikachu? I think I just made a huge mistake."

---

A/N: I pick him up, then I knock him down. Don't act like you didn't know what this was! I imagine that I've probably alienated big chunk of my readership with this chapter but, hey, them's the breaks.

"You keep fucking with Ash, and raising more and more questions, and you wont answer any of them, and I don't even know what you're talking about any more, and now there's just too many characters, and I hate you, and what happened to Team Rocket?"

Relax, baby-bird. I'll feed you. You just gotta wait it out.

Interesting note: you'd be surprised at how hard it is not to rip off every war-movie ever when you start talking about boot-camp. So, after a long debate, I compromised and ripped off the best one. Heh.

I really wanted to get this chapter out before school started but as you can see, that didn't happen. I'm working on the next chapter in my spare time, either way. Not sure when it'll be, exactly, but I'll also be working on rolling edits and formatting updates to existing chapters in the meantime (god knows they need it), so keep an eye out for that, if it's your thing. I may also be changing the name of this story at some point, since the original title was always more of a place-holder, so if you haven't put it on your alert list yet, you might do that as well. Anyways, until next time.