Chapter 26

(Some german is spoken in this chapter. I didn't use a translator, only my own knowledge. I apologize to everyone who speaks the language. Knowing myself, I most likely butchered it.)

Laying flat on his face, Otto let out a delayed sound of pain. He was wearing gray denim shorts that went over his knees, a dark green polo shirt, and had a plain, matching colored bandana tied on his head with the 'tail' of it going down to the back of his neck. His shoes were black low tops with the laces looking like they had been hastily been tied together.

Bomber's feather's puffed up with him literally hopping into the air from the sudden fright. The backpack that was originally slung over his shoulder was now beside him, being, once again, a dark green. He raised his head, relieving his wasn't wearing his glasses. Otto had a feeling that his landing would go foul, so he had already planned ahead.

Everyone was now standing, just staring at him as he got up on his knees as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a glasses case and popped it open, taking his glasses out and putting them on. He blinked with his vision adjusting. Otto stared back at the odd crew of unexplained characters.

"Hey." Otto said standing up, dusting himself off. "I thought I'd just drop by to see how you guys were doing."

He laughed at his own joke, seeing that nobody else was laughing. A Growlithe in the dress-like thing and a Meowth in shorts without a coin on it's forehead were looking at Matt, who had his head in his hands in distress. Rachel looked pissed. There was also a decently large bird with an aviator cap shaking in fear.

"W-where the hell did you come from?!" Bomber panicked. Rachel walked over to Otto with her hands clenched together. Before he could brace himself, she punched him full force in the gut. He wheezed in pain with all of the Pokemon still staring at Matt for an explaination.

"Why the hell did you come here?!" Rachel yelled. Otto looked up at her spiteful, fed up with her bullshit. He traveled to a universe to help them and this how she was going to repay his kindness?

"What the hell is your problem?!" Otto said still hunched over in his pain. "I came to help!"

Rachel threw her arms in the air like she typically did when she was upset.

"Are you retarded?!" she yelled. "How the hell would you coming here help us?!"

Otto forced himself to erect his back, even if her punch did still sting.

"You're the one who told me that I was useless behind a keyboard!" Otto argued. "Now you're going to say that I'm stupid for coming to help?"

Rachel put her hand on her head as if she were holding back from blowing up in her rage. She narrowed her eyes at him as Matt began to hit his head in the background. His Pokemon couldn't fathom what the problem was or what the hell was even going on. Bomber most of all. Even though Matt had explained everything, it was another thing to grasp it all. The last thing he expected was someone to magically appear from nowhere.

"Otto," she said holding back her anger. "Matt isn't coming back."

He stared at her, blinked, then shook his head as if he didn't understand what she meant.

"The hell are you talking about?" he asked her. Otto looked behind her, seeing Matt still hitting himself. Rachel took a deep breath, clearly near her breaking point.

"Matt. Is. Not. Coming. Home." she told him fragmented. Otto still couldn't understand what she was getting at. Matt walked towards Rachel and Otto, shaking his head. Being the barer of bad news, it pained him to see his friend's lost look.

"I'm not coming back home." Matt told him. "I'm staying."

Otto looked mortified.

"What?! But-"

"Look," Matt interrupted. "I'm sorry I dragged both of you in this mess. I never intended on getting the two of you in this."

"But you said you were going to find Bill..." Otto told him in disbelief. Matt sighed, nodding his head at his friend.

"I still am," he explained. "but I'm now doing this to get Rachel back home, and now, you as well."

Matt felt like the biggest jackass in the world as he explained to both Rachel and Otto that he never had time to tell either of them before Rachel came. Not wanting to cause tension, he refrained from telling her in fear she'd act like she was now. That comment made her pissed, making her punch him in the chest.

"But why?" Otto asked him as if he were losing his best friend. "What's worth throwing away your old life?"

Matt frowned, as if he should already have some idea.

"My old life was terrible." Matt told without hesitation. "You know that, man. I have a fresh start here; a life that's already been special to me so far."

Matt turned his head and glanced at Sissy who's ears perked up when she saw him staring. He moved his head back towards Otto.

"Besides," he told him. "I made a promise to someone I really care about."

Sissy blushed with Emie hearing what Matt had said as well. She frowned, giving Sissy a dirty look.

"Matt still loves Emie better..." she grumbled. Sissy returned her distasteful comment with a dirty look of her own. Bomber was so confused, looking at everyone at a breakneck speed.

"Could someone please enlighten me?" Bomber pleaded. "Who the hell is the dude in green and where the hell did he come from?!"

His outburst went unheard.

Otto couldn't believe this. He wasn't mad, rather, was heartbroken.

"But...but you're my best friend..." he told him. "You were just gonna stay here without even telling me you weren't coming back?"

Matt shook his head with Otto looking completely heartbroken. Rachel was biting her knuckle, trying to calm herself the best she could. It wasn't working.

"I was going to tell you," Matt explained trying to sound comforting, "but I didn't wanna tell you until everything was said and done. I thought it would have been easier that way."

Rachel shook her head, shoving her finger in his face.

"You are the most selfish person I have ever met!" she yelled. "What about the people that need you?! What about the people that care about you? You're going to let them suffer just because you want a 'better life?' That's bullshit, Matt!"

Matt grabbed her wrist and threw her arm down. He wasn't going to stand there and be insulted by someone who thought she could walk all over him.

"I'm selfish?" Matt asked her, patting his chest. "I can't make my own choices? This is my life dammit, not yours! I'll do what I want with it! And for your information nobody fucking needs me!"

"What about us?" Otto asked. "We need you, dude. Your the best friend I've ever had. Without you I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as I have in life now."

Matt sighed, once again shaking his head.

"It pains me to say this," Matt told him, "but the two of you honestly don't need me. I've been nothing but a burden for both of you."

"Oh, for fuck sake," Rachel said rolling her eyes, "don't pull that 'feel sorry for me' card. That crap doesn't work anymore."

"Excuse me?" Matt told her offended. "You're the one who told me I was useless on a daily basis! Shit, even when we were dating you used to tell me how useless I was."

"I did not!" Rachel yelled, well knowing that what he was saying was true. The least she could do was deny it the best she could.

"The only time you weren't complaining was when your mouth was busy!" Matt told her aggressively. "Sucking on my dick was probably on only way to make you shut up!"

Rachel slapped Matt across the face with a hand print being left. Sissy and Emie didn't know how to react to such news. Matt and Rachel had actually been together?

Moving his face back toward, he and rubbing his cheek and sighed.

"Okay," he told her, "I deserved that."

"Damn right you did!" Rachel yelled at him. "The next time you say something like that you're going to get your neck slit!"

Otto looked so hopeless. His arms looked limp, just dangling from his shoulders with his head lowered. Matt was his only real friend, excluding Rachel. Even then, he could hardly call her a friend. Most of the time he felt like he was just her personal punching bag.

"So this is it then?" Otto asked him. "After all these years our friendship is over like this?"

Matt thrashed his head side to side almost upset he would imply such a cruel ideal.

"Don't think like that." Matt told him. "No matter what I'll be your friend. It's just that we're gonna be in different universes. Just think of it as a long distance friendship. Besides, we still need to find Bill. We've got a ways to go still."

Otto sighed with a slight nod of his head. He felt Matt put his hand on his shoulder.

"Come on man," Matt told him, "don't be like this. We're on a freaking adventure with Pokemon. How many people can you say have actually done that?"

Otto smirked, feeling slightly better.

"I guess you're right." Otto told him. "We might as well make the best of everything. I just...I don't want you to just be gone from my life."

Rachel couldn't believe any of this. She was so pissed, but held held back.

"Fine," she said with her arms crossed. "if you really wanna just say screw it all and abandon your friends, so be it."

"I don't know what to tell you guys." Matt told them. "I can't express how sorry I am."

The two of them didn't say anything.

Otto still looked heartbroken.

Rachel still looked pissed.

"How about we talk about this later." Matt told them. "For now, how about I introduce you to everyone?"

Matt moved out of the way so Otto could get a better look at his three Pokemon.

"I'd like you guys to meet my friend Otto." Matt told Sissy, Emie, and Bomber. "He's the one who built the machine that got me here in the first place."

He motioned towards Sissy.

"That's Sissy." Matt explained. "She's the one who almost killed me when I arrived."

She smiled at Otto, giving a slight bow of her head.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." she spoke elegantly. Otto noticed the collar around her neck, already knowing what it was after all the research he'd done. Matt then motioned towards Emie, who was smiling at Otto. She thought the glasses he wore made him look cute.

"This is Emie." Matt went on to explain. "I met her along the way to Viridian."

"Half naked, mind you..." Sissy added under hear breath as if to insult Emie. Being her ditzy self, she didn't realize it was supposed to be a hateful comment. In fact, she thought Sissy was complementing her. Emie waved her hand at Otto with her eyes squinted and her tooth sticking out.

"Emie is very happy to meet Otto." she told him. Once again, Otto noticed a collar on her as well. The bell with the heart carve out made her look even more adorable than she already appeared to be to Otto. She was actually kinda hot.

"And this is Bomber." Matt finished, motioning towards Bomber, who was slowly managing to get his nerves calmed. "I met him yesterday actually. This guy can actually talk by himself believe it or not."

Even if Bomber was surprised by the fact that a guy showed up from nowhere, he still acted as normal as possible.

"Nice to meet you, Otto." he told him with a stretch of his wings. Otto was actually impressed by Matt's progress.

"You seem like you've been handling yourself pretty well." Otto complemented. "You look good for someone who-"

"Can we please just go?!" Rachel outburst in anger. "I'm done just sitting around her and I'm way to pissed to eat anymore. We're not gonna find Bill standing around!"

Matt looked at her concerned. She obviously wasn't taking the I'm-not-going-home-news very well. Rachel snatched up her backpack without another word and threw it over her shoulder. She shot Matt one last dirty look before stomping in the direction the Viridian forest. With no other choice really, the rest of the crew followed after her with a tension lingering in the air once more.

Rachel took the lead with her hands gripped around the straps of her backpack and her knuckles appearing to whiten from how hard she was holding onto them. It was clear that she was still mad about everything. Bomber tried to talk with her like they had done once before, but this time was blown off by her. He sorta felt sad that she was too upset to talk to him, deciding it was best not to perch on her shoulder. Instead, he loyally perched on Matt's.

Emie was on Matt's left side with Otto being on his right. Sissy was the only one brave enough to walk beside Rachel, but only because she had her own intentions. After hearing that Rachel and Matt had been together, Sissy was wondering if she could ask a few questions. Although, gathering the courage to ask about such a personal matter was difficult for her. She mostly just walked side by side, every now and then barely opening her mouth, but shutting it closed before she drew attention to herself. Rachel was too upset to notice.

During the time they walked, Matt filled Otto in on everything that had happened. Some of the violence made Otto grow pale, but knew it wasn't unlike Matt to find trouble. Matt pretty much held nothing back, but every now and then would say a words in a foreign language to make sure Emie wouldn't understand. Both Otto and Matt had learned how to speak german when they were younger, although were far from fluent in doing so. They liked to refer to it as "Mutt German."

"So," Matt explained smugly, doing his best to speak german, "wir hat auf den Schauer geflickt."

Otto's eye's widened, looking over to Emie who was humming to herself.

"Mit Emie?" Otto asked surprised. Emie glanced over to them after hearing her name, but went back to humming soon after. Bomber had no clue what they were saying, trying his best to decipher their 'code'. Matt nodded with a chuckle.

"Es was...nett." Matt said with a conceded grin. Otto almost wanted to high five him.

"What are you guys saying?" Bomber asked them. Matt and Otto chuckled, looking at each other as if they weren't talking about anything dirty.

"Um, nothing important." Matt lied.

"It's nice being able to speak a different language sometimes." Otto said to himself out loud. Emie's humming grew louder with her beginning to sing to herself, completely off tempo with not a single bit of her lyrical 'masterpiece' rhyming. Otto's comment reminded Matt of something.

"Hey Otto, I've been meaning to ask something."

"Yeah?"

"Well, how is it that we know what everyone is saying. If we're from a different universe wouldn't that mean everyone would be speaking a competently different language?"

Otto smiled, glad his friend brought that up actually.

"Actually," he told him, "it's rather easy to understand why we speak the same language. You see-"

Emie continued singing as Otto explained in flawless detail how both of their dimensions just happened to speak the same language. She was really getting into the song.

"An' Emie is pre-teh!" she sang with her head bobbing side to side. "Pre-teh, pre-teh Em-ie!"

Otto finished his explanation with Matt nodding his head slowly, understanding everything he had been just explained.

"So that's why we have twenty six letters..." Matt said with a sudden stroke of realization.

"Precisely." Otto told him, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"But what about dimensional travel?" Matt asked. "How is that even feasibly possible?"

Otto shrugged with a chuckle.

"It really isn't as complicated as you might think." Otto told him. "Imagine two wires-"

"Em-ie so pre-teh that she pre-teh!" Emie continued to sing while Otto explained dimensional travel. Matt and Bomber both listened with their understanding of dimensional travel expanding.

"Sorta like a mirror?" Bomber inquired. Otto snapped his fingers with a confident nod of his head.

"Just like a mirror!" Otto said excited. Science always got him excited. "And guess what. Not only did I figure out how to travel through dimensions, but I also learned how it's possible to travel faster than the speed of light."

"Seriously?" Matt said impressed. "I thought that was impossible."

"Actually, it's so simple that a child could understand it. Think of a-"

"Emie is uh supa sex-eh!" Emie sang with her tail swinging side to side with her hips as she walked beside Matt, who was being explained how to travel faster than the speed of light. "Emie is a nyin-ja! Em-ie is a suuupa nyin-ja!"

During this time, Rachel and Sissy still were a ways ahead of the rest of them. It was almost impossible for Sissy to think of a way to start her questioning. Should she even attempt it? Rachel was already in a bad mood and it would be unwise to cause even more angery. Still, her questions weren't going to be answered just by remaining silent. She had to break through the silence somehow.

"Um, hey, uh, Rachel?" Sissy asked. Rachel glanced over to her, not particularly looking like she was going to snap at her.

"Yeah?" she sighed.

Sissy looked down at the dirt road, now with the forest only about a mile away.

"I-I'm sorry." she told her. Rachel didn't understand what Sissy had done to make her sorry.

"Why are you sorry?" she asked her. Sissy started to feel shy about the subject of Matt.

"I'm sorry Matt is staying because of me." she told her. She glanced up at Rachel, seeing her have a half smile.

"You're really lucky." Rachel told her. "Even if Matt can be an idiot and a womanizer, I can tell he really cares about you a lot."

"R-really?" Sissy asked her. Rachel raised an eyebrow as if to say 'oh, come on; you know he does.'

"I see the way you two act around each other. I knew you guys didn't really hate each other. Although I didn't expect Matt to move so fast."

Sissy felt ashamed once again.

"T-that was sorta my fault too." Sissy told her. "He asked me multiple times if he was going fast. I don't know why, but it felt...right." Sissy hid her face embarrassed. "God, I must sound stupid to you."

There was a silent pause with Rachel soon laughing afterward.

"You're not stupid, Sissy." Rachel assured her. "In fact, I commend you on not jumping on like I did. Literally."

Sissy looked at her surprised. Rachel got a another laugh out of her reaction.

"I know, I know," Rachel told her with a grin. "Matt and I fight a lot. But that's just how I am. And yet..." She stopped, thinking deeply. "Yet he still cared about me a lot when we were dating. Matt's a good guy, granted, he does tend to chase women."

"Not to mention is a pervert." Sissy added jokingly.

"All guys are perverts in some shape of form." Rachel told her. "And yet us woman enjoy that fact. Go figure."

Sissy looked away with a forced frown.

"Well, I don't like it." Sissy said hiding her face. Rachel once again laughed.

"You can lie to yourself as much as you want," Rachel told her, "but come on. You and I both know that it means the world when you notice a guy checking you out."

Sissy didn't respond, only getting quiet, trying to hide the fact that Rachel was right. To change the subject, Sissy thought of something else to say.

"What should I do?" Sissy asked her.

"About what?"

"Matt." she clarified. "I really care about him, but... he thinks it's better that we're just friends. He probably didn't even mean that 'flame of life' stuff."

Rachel looked at her with her eyes narrowing in a inquisitive gesture.

"When did he tell you that?" she asked. Sissy looked confused.

"I thought you already knew?" Sissy meekly responded. Rachel shook her head.

"That's not what I meant." she told her. "I mean when did he tell you?"

Sissy thought about Matt and her lying in bed together. She also remembered what it felt like to have him hold her. It made her feel warm- much warmer than normal. The thought of them kissing for the first time almost made her start to get emotional. Why were her emotions getting so razzed up? She was never the emotional type before she had met Matt. Sissy shook her head, forcing herself to not think about the other things that were flooding her mind.

"He told me when we were lying in bed after we had..."

"Sex?" Rachel finished. Sissy face grew red behind her orange fur.

"Y-yeah..."

"Whatever he told you then was the truth." Rachel explained to her. "I've known Matt long enough to know how he works. For some reason, maybe some brain chemistry, after he has sex he tells the truth, not matter what it may be. Whatever he tells you afterward is one hundred percent true."

There was another silent pause with hope filling Sissy's heart. Along with a burning question.

"Hey Rachel?"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't you and Matt still together?" She asked her. Rachel chuckled to herself.

"Some people are just meant to be friends." she told her. "It's probably best we leave it at that. Besides, I can't see him as anything more than-"

Rachel halted in her tracks as they were getting very near the forest.

We was wearing a black suit with a matching tie and shoes. He was a slender, pale man who stood there in the distance between a few trees. His face was gone, only being a white silhouette. The man just stood there, being fairly tall. Maybe about six and a half feet tall. With a blink of an eye, the man was gone.

He had vanished without a trace.

"Are you alright?" Sissy asked her with the boys and Emie catching up. Rachel wasn't sure if she had admit to what she had saw. Deciding against it, she shook her head trying to act normal.

"It's nothing." she told her.

Reluctantly, she began to walking forward once again alongside Sissy.

And so, Matt and the crew continued onward into the Viridian forest with light hearted steps.

If only they had known the horrors that awaited them...