In which Fred owns and Matt moans.

It was raining, real rain for once, and in this hot, thirsty seaside town this was relatively unusual. Rocky, however, had grown up in a horrible, wet swampy place near Conifer Town called Rushweed, and rain was normal, even comfortable for him. He galloped across the glistening black pebbles by the beach, sure-footed and confident. His Snubbull opponent seemed entirely put off by the dampness, and in his efforts to escape he slipped and landed hard on his face.

"Pansy!" his trainer cried. "Get up, dodge it. Move it, move it!" She punched her palm until it went red, and Kitty raised an eyebrow.

"Hang on, Rocky," she mumbled. She couldn't bring herself to attack the poor little pink thing with its face in the mud, and waited for the Snubbull to heave himself to his feet again. "Alright, let's end this thing with a Quick Attack."

Rocky curved around in a semicircle and, faster than she could blink, slammed headlong into the foe, causing it to hurtle headfirst into its irritating trainer, a young girl who for some reason was wearing a now soaking wet ballgown. She fell back with a splat on the wet floor.

"Get up!" she yelled at her unconscious pokemon. "Get UP!" With an angry sigh she returned it, and Rocky padded back to Kitty's side. "I have one more, this isn't over yet," she called, and chucked out another ball with a grin.

The Gastly appeared, smiling rather creepily at them. Kitty stared – she hadn't seen one in this world yet, and she would have paid money to never see one again. It was translucent in a sack-of-liquid sort of way, with bulging bloodshot eyes that were too big for its face, and rubbery, humanoid lips that curled back to reveal glistening and chipped fangs.

"Mean Look," the girl ordered, in what seemed to be an attempt to trap the poor Normal type in what could potentially have been an impossible battle. Gastly's eyes widened, lids stretched back until the crimson things popped out of its non-existent skull. Rocky shuddered.

"It's alright," Kitty said, "Iron Tail."

Rocky took a deep breath and shook himself off, rain scattering from his puffed out fur, and he took off, launching himself in the air and executing a perfect front flip as they had practiced. It sliced the Gastly from head to … bottom of head, causing the ghost to spin backwards a little, but it came back almost immediately with a Confuse Ray that caught Rocky between the eyes.

"Shake it off," Kitty said, hoping it hadn't been effective, "and Iron Tail again."

Rocky seemed to interpret this as 'stand on your head', and managed somehow to balance himself on the floor between the ears. His tail complied with his trainer's orders, however, turning to iron, and he smacked himself in the face with it. The stupid girl laughed, not even bothering to order another attack.

"Come on, you know how to use Iron Tail," Kitty pleaded – it was the only attack that would be effective against the Ghost type.

Rocky's tail remained metallic as he twisted onto his four legs again, wandering left and right, the tail a dead weight behind him that dug a muddy trench that quickly filled up with brown water.

"Freak him out a little," the girl whispered. The Gastly looked disgustingly excited, swollen tongue hanging from its mouth. It disappeared, only to reappear right in Rocky's face. He jumped about a foot in the air. God knows what that had been like while he was tripping off his head. His tail blinked from fur to metal, causing him to smash back down to the ground hard. He had knocked himself out.

"Crap!" Kitty exclaimed, running over to kneel in the mud next to him. "Sorry, sweetie. You ok?"

Rocky blinked up at her, soaking and dirty, and 'vee'd.

"Your next pokemon please," the trainer said, hands on muddy hips. She had obviously rubbed her upper lip at some point because now she had a mud moustache on her very serious face.

Kitty flinched. She had left Freya to make friends with the boys and their pokemon, taking Rocky alone out to train in the rain. "No, you win," she said bitterly. The girl's eyes widened and she screamed and punched the air. Sighing, Kitty locked her trainer machine onto hers and transferred over 400AD, a decent amount of pocket money, and the girl and her Gastly went off giggling.

One good difference between the games and reality, Kitty had quickly discovered, was that pokemon didn't necessarily have to go to a pokemon centre unless their injuries were very bad. Anything else and the damage could be slept off – pokemon healed cuts and bruises insanely fast on their own. Rocky would be fine after just a couple of hours rest. The only real damage he'd taken had been from a couple of attacks and being punched in the face by his own tail.

"I want to teach you Shadow Ball," Kitty told him as she gently washed mud from his fur in the hotel sink. They had been training constantly since his kits were checked in, partly to give them something to concentrate on other than if they were ok, but also partly to stop them from tracking down and breaking Matthew.

Something that was becoming increasingly harder to resist.

Charlie, Adam and Fred had been temporarily entrusted with taking care of Kitty's new shiny Ponyta, that apparently she had taken from the Umbra base. So, of course, they did what any responsible trainer would have done when in charge of a relatively weak Fire type: they took her to the seaside during a rather dismal bout of rain.

"I thought Saxen was the one who stole stuff," Adam said thoughtfully as he kicked rocks on the soot-coloured beach.

"She didn't really steal it, I mean, it was already stolen. She rescued it," Charlie said, releasing Loki and Fisher, who immediately cannonballed into the sea.

"Does Saxen still steal?" Fred asked, gracing them with the first words he'd said all evening. "He was in therapy for ages."

"I don't think so. I think he stopped when he took up fencing," Charlie said.

Adam laughed. "I completely forgot he did fencing! He'd look so gay in those clothes." He paused. "You guys think he's gay or what?"

"Well he doesn't join in when we talk about girls," Fred pointed out. "You remember when that girl with the-"

"Oh God, the red bikini?" Adam grinned.

"Yeah, she was so hot," Fred said, deadpan. "All of our heads followed her down the beach – it was funny – but Saxen just carried on reading his book."

"Well there's nothing wrong with being gay," Charlie said, frowning a little. "And we're his friends."

"Obviously, but wouldn't it make you just a little uncomfortable if he was? Like … I dunno. Being around him all the time and he'd, like …" Adam couldn't figure out how to finish his sentence.

Charlie laughed loudly, and Adam looked confused. "You think that if he were gay he'd automatically want to do you?"

Adam blinked a bit. "Well I'm just saying that if-"

"Yeah well don't. You'll just come off ignorant."

"Hey, guys, look," Fred said, instinctively warding off any impending argument by pointing at an unsuspecting pokemon in their path.

"Why are you being so touchy suddenly?" Adam asked, reddening.

"Look."

"I don't like it when people are ignorant," Charlie shrugged.

"Guys, look."

"If it's a-"

"Look!" Fred yelled, causing them to both look at him in alarm. They followed his outstretched arm to see a tiny Lotad looking up at them.

"Cool, a Grass type!" Adam yelled, at exactly the same time as Charlie cried, "A Water type, mine!" They looked at each other again, tension crackling.

"It's mine, I saw it first," Charlie said.

"We saw it at the same time," Adam countered grumpily.

"Well Lotad is more water than grass, so …"

"What?" Adam cried. "It can't even learn Water Gun! It-"

Ping.

They both looked at Fred, who was holding up a pokeball. For the first time in years, he was smiling.

"Well well well," he said quietly. "Looks like you two are Fred's bitches for a while."

Incendia currently had a lot of responsibilities, and it completely sucked. She had to take care of her Ninetales, who still hadn't recovered from her encounter with those morons; she had over a hundred stupid grunts who came to her with every pathetic problem they had, and she had to constantly grovel at the Boss' feet for a promotion, relocation, demotion … anything to stop her from having to deal with these kids day in and day out.

But then that Houndoom had broken in, released another Houndoom that they had been keeping locked up in the testing room, and together they had caused absolute havoc in their base.

Then, the girl with chocolate-coloured hair had broken in, despite the fact that after the dimensional explorer fiasco security had more than tripled, and taken down the guards with what eyewitnesses had described as a 'big straw'. What the hell? She was working alongside idiots.

According to the people she had left conscious, she wanted to 'press the button', though she didn't seem to know exactly what that entailed, despite her surly self-confidence.

So now, responsibility number fifty-freaking-seven or whatever was to get everybody out of the building before the button was pressed. Because if that button was pressed, everyone would suffer a fate worse than death.

Incendia was understandably annoyed about this; if they had to evacuate the branch, it would mean that a lot of the stuff she'd been working on, that the organisation had poured billions of Aerei dollars into, along with all of the pokemon they had stored, would be gone, untouchable for the rest of eternity by human hands.

She couldn't have that.

Storming through the now abandoned Pestilice base, she headed straight for the room that housed this stupid button. Why had Umbra decided a button was necessary anyway? The chips implanted into their hands had many functions: tracking, information storage, clearance, and only one of these many functions was a steady fluid secretion into their bloodstream of a drug extracted from Pestilice itself. This fluid rendered them immune to the illness that the ugly bird could bring to them, and was the reason they had survived in this base where no other humans could tread. Genius, really. This way nobody would ever stumble across them. Except for those brats, of course.

The button was a precaution. The chips' tracking mechanism could easily be used against them, as could the clearance device. There had been times in the past that people had ripped off the hands of Umbrans to let themselves into rooms that they should not have been permitted to. Additionally, there were records in the past of the chips going haywire and the secretion mechanism causing the holder to become ill. So the button was a precaution. A precaution that nobody outside the organisation … hell, nobody other than the five executives and the Boss, should have known about.

Incendia would have bet her butt that this interfering girl and her Houndoom had something to do with those interdimensional teenagers. This only made them that much more interesting to her. How could they have known about the button?

"I see you found it," she said, when she arrived. The Control Room. A self-destruct button lay unnoticed, and she was relieved. Even if the girl somehow knew which of these buttons deactivated the chips with radio waves, Incendia would have enough time with the fluid already in her veins to rescue at least some of the data. The self-destruct button would destroy it all, including the pokemon, and that thought made her feel sick.

"You disgust me," the girl said, her voice shaking. "So many people have died trying to take you down." Incendia raised her eyebrows a little. She got front row seats to this girl's monologue? Lucky her.

"You're about to become one of them," she pointed out. "The more time you spend here, the more likely you are to get hit by the curse."

Why aren't you cursed already? she couldn't help thinking.

"I don't care," the girl said through gritted teeth. "I'm taking you down. I'm going to kill you. I'll destroy your organisation. I'll slit each and every one of your throats if I have to, even if I have to bleed to death myself, and I'll laugh while I do it."

"Fair enough," Incendia said with a shrug. "But the fact that you haven't pressed it already says to me that you don't know which of the hundreds of buttons it is." She smiled. "And if you press all of them in turn, know that one of them is the alarm, that will send the Warupt branch army straight here to destroy any intruders, another releases our four resident guard Houndoom – which, incidentally, we were on our way to brainwashing yours into – and another one blows up the base on just a five second delay." She finished, pleased with herself. "You have a one in approximately three-hundred chance of being right, and a much more pleasant one in a hundred chance of dying instead. Have fun."

She turned on her heel and headed straight for the room marked PRE-TESTING LAB. She was going to take as many untainted pokemon with her. She had no way of knowing how much time she had, but she didn't care. She had many responsibilities. Rescuing 'useless' pokemon was not one of them.

Damn her conscience to hell; it was going to be the death of her.

Saxen and Elliot lay on a bed together, watching Aerei TV. An overwhelmingly fat man was giving his account to a pretty reporter with a microphone. Even the news was interesting in this place.

"They came," he said, face shiny with sweat, "out of absolutely nowhere." He paused in his account deliberately to add drama, but in all the wrong places. "Through the walls, through the floor, through … the ceiling even."

"Terrifying," the reporter said quietly, nodding her head. "Did you start attempting to escape at that point?"

"Yes," he said, and nodded too. "We opened windows, we opened doors, we … got the women and the children out, and … it was awful. So scary."

This guy obviously wasn't going to miss a second of his fifteen minutes of fame.

"And there you have it, first-hand account of one of these rumoured plagues that have devastated lives and caused terror and widespread panic on Aerei."

Saxen and Elliot lay on their stomachs sharing peanuts from the minibar and kicking their legs in the air.

"The most recent seems to be Zubat," the reporter continued. "Zubat appearing out of nowhere. Out of walls, in showers, even one account of them appearing in a refrigerator. But this reporter has only one question: why are we being punished? And who by? Next we visit the weather centre in Hoenn, where they warn the next plague could come in the form of-"

Elliot turned off the TV with the remote, and rolled over onto his back, chewing thoughtfully. "What do you think is going on?" he asked. "There must be a scientific explanation for these Zubat plagues."

"Overpopulation," Saxen said simply. "Running out of food, and so they're panicking to stay alive, invading human homes when normally they would have stayed away." He threw the empty packet into the bin from where he lay. "As for appearing out of nowhere – they're smart. They stay out of sight, in shadows. People are overreacting. It's funny when weird things happen to superstitious people."

Elliot shrugged in agreement. There was a long pause as they sat in silence. "About what Kitty said," he said hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think … you don't think the guys actually think we're, like, gay. Do you?"

Saxen snorted. "No, they're just teasing." He looked over to his friend and let out a heavy breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again.

"When are you gonna tell them?" Elliot asked quietly, catching him so completely off guard that he started to cough on stray peanut residue at the back of his throat.

"Tell … them what?" he choked.

Elliot didn't look at them. "That you are gay," he said with a casual shrug, and stood up. He grinned at Saxen as he put his shoes on again. "Don't think for a second I don't know you, you moron," he said brightly, and then picked up his bag. His birds fluttered over to him, perching on his shoulders while his Farfetch'd, Negi, waddled over to his side. "See you, Sax."

"Wait," Saxen said desperately, scrambling off the bed. In his rush, his foot was tangled, and he fell to the floor with a painful crash. Elliot was gone, and so were his pokemon. "Fuck!" he hissed, kicking the bed. It hurt, and he collapsed onto it again, gritting his teeth in pain.

"Absol," Lithium said comfortingly, leaping onto the bed beside him. His bulk caused Saxen to wobble, but he ignored it, staring at the ceiling. He put out his hand and stroked his lovely pokemon on the head.

"I need to do something," he muttered. Lithium nuzzled his side. "I dunno what, but I need to change."

Across the room, in his slightly opened bag, the glass from the restaurant in the shape of a man's torso poked out.

"I did it before. I can do it again."

Matthew was only relatively sober for around forty minutes, as he had barely been conscious when the marijuana's effect faded before the nurse had administrated some pretty nice drugs into his system. He lay on his bed, all sorts of stuff strapped to his broken face, and he didn't care: he was flying.

For once in his waste of a life, however, he didn't want to be. He wanted to be fully conscious, fully lucid, and able to explain to Kitty exactly what had happened. But maybe this was for the best. Maybe she could have a chance to calm down now before he tried to explain.

"Uh …" he said. His mouth had suddenly become very dry, and he swallowed a couple of times. "Sorry, dude, I can't."

"No money?"

"Yeah," he lied, heart hammering. He willed the boy to go before he made a stupid, stupid mistake.

"Doesn't matter," the guy grinned. "I'm in such a good mood, and I've got so much to spare … you want it for free?"

His heart stopped for a moment. "F-free?" he croaked.

"Yup."

"What's the catch?"

The boy laughed, and his Zangoose had cackled too. "There's no catch, dude. Except that you smoke it now."

"What … why now?"

The boy pressed it into Matthew's chest. Enough for exactly one joint. He swallowed again. "Because that's the catch," he said, and smiled, baring his teeth.

Thinking about it now it made little sense. But his head had been swimming with bad decisions and sick memories.

"Deal," Matt said, flushing pink as he pocketed the drugs. "Let's say I owe you one."

"Perfect," the boy said, and then winked, and was gone.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was hard to concentrate right now. The painkillers they had given him had reminded him of only one thing: he needed a goddamn drink.

The taste, the smell, the feeling of it between his lips, between his teeth, was something he hadn't forgotten. Something he had missed so bad, like an ache in the bottom of his gut. An itch so deep inside he just couldn't scratch it.

The kits on the floor mewled as he took another drag. They were so sharply in focus. He made a noise of pleasure, quiet, but loud enough for Kitty's Eevee to glare at him. Could Eevee even glare? The thing was managing it well enough.

"What?" he mumbled. "Stop looking at me."

Rocky's gaze never faltered.

"Stop fucking looking at me," he muttered, digging the point of his boot into the little thing's chest until it scrabbled back a couple of steps.

"Idiot."

Matt froze. He was sure he had just heard Rocky talk. Still sober enough to dismiss it, he shook his head. The drugs were doing it. Lovely drugs.

"Enjoying yourself?" the boy came out of a bush, and he grinned, surrendering himself to the feeling, going along with every second. He only had enough for one, after all. He could deal with a couple of hallucinations if he needed to.

"Yes," he said, enjoying the way the 's' sound hissed through his teeth, like a snake. "Yessssssss."

"Looks like your pokemon are hungry," he said, pointing at the kits who were mewling louder now. "Maybe they could do with some … fun, too. Yeah?"

"Yeah, kay," Matt said. He knelt down with some difficulty – which way did a human's knees bend again? "C'mere," he muttered, and picked up all four of them at once, ignoring the pain of Rocky's teeth in his shin.

"Here," the boy said, and took out some white powder from his pocket. "Put this in their milk formula."

"Wha-" Matthew opened his mouth, but the boy had taken the carton away from him and poured it in.

"That should be enough," he said.

"I thought we wanted to give them some weed," he said slowly.

"This is pokemon drugs," the boy said.

"Awesome!" Matthew said, and it really, really was.

"Alright, now if you just rub it on their gums for now it'll send them to sleep for a bit. Get them used to it before your friend feeds them properly with it."

"Will they see the Earth like this?" Matthew said. "Are they gonna see into, like, its soul?"

"Most definitely. They'll be the grooviest Eevee around."

"Awesome," Matthew said again. Awesome was an awesome word. It summed up exactly how he felt; exactly how just everything was. Awesome.

He swallowed now, red and white spots in his vision. If that had been true … which he couldn't really determine right now … he had to warn Kitty.

For now, though, he'd much rather go to sleep.

The covers were soft. The lights above him were pretty. The nurse had a big nose.

"Are you doing alright, dear?" she asked.

"Ynn," he replied.

"Try to get some sleep."

He was already asleep, wasn't he? He reached his arm, now a dead weight, over to his other to give himself a quick pinch, but he passed out before he got the chance.

"Everything worked, I trust?"

Wind blew violently today. The rain hadn't let up all day. It looked like the sea could flood the town any moment now. Would this count as another plague or would it be discounted as a coincidence?

"Yes," Dylan said. "The boy was so out of it I was able to increase the dosage as you asked. But …" His heart hammered as he prepared to question his master. "Are you sure it won't damage them?"

"There may be some unprecedented side effects …" it sighed. "But we don't have time to wait and see."

"Fine," the boy said, and nodded. "Just tell me, how did you know that the boy would take the drugs?"

"I …" the creature began, and then bared his teeth at the boy. "If you ask unauthorised questions one more time I will punish you, boy."

"Ok, how do I get a question authorised?" Dylan asked with a frown.

With a shriek of unnecessary rage, the creature launched itself at Dylan. Jay the Zangoose leapt in front of his trainer to protect him, and was knocked out cold in a pool of blood.

Dylan paled, kneeling at his partner's feet in the mud as raindrops the size of golf balls pattered all around them.

"That wasn't fair," he whispered. "I did everything you wanted."

"Shut up," the creature spat. "Disgusting human. You're lucky I have decided to spare your life. Don't make me change my mind."

"Sorry, master," Dylan said, and stared down the creature for a long time, before going back to tending his mangled Zangoose.

"I just can't wait for the moment that putrid blonde girl realises she is in way over her head with those killing machines," it said, running a tongue over bloodied lips. And then the silence of the forest was destroyed by its grating laughter.

"My babies!" Kitty yelled, cradling the bundle of tiny Eevee kits once more. Rocky was leaping up her leg, trying to get closer to them. She lowered them and he licked each one of them in turn, verifying their health. "I'm so glad you're ok. Did the stupid boy hurt you?" She stroked them gently.

"They're fine," the nurse said, and looked confused. "We did find some strange substances in their bloodstream but it doesn't look like it had any negative effect," she said, and then shrugged. "Just keep an eye on them."

"I won't let them out of my sight again," Kitty said, and she and Rocky went back to her hotel room to feed them.

At the Parum Town shop they sold baby supplies, and she had picked up three more bottles. She filled all of them with a small layer of the powder that nice Dylan boy had given her, and added water, shaking them violently for a minute and a half.

"Here you go, sweeties," she said, and stuck the nipples of the bottles through various gaps in her fingers so that she could feed them all at the same time. "Drink it all down, wash away whatever that idiot put into you."

The kits drank hungrily, throats working as they sucked and sucked.

Somewhere close to the town, and only just loud enough for Rocky's large ears to pick up, laughter filled the air.