To all the people who thought this fic was dead... what do you have to say now?

That's right... I'm back! With yet another chapter of HLH! Took me long enough, right?

I'm not all too proud of this one... I do like it... it's just... I seem to be doomed to forever hate my work for whatever reasons... Kinda weird I know.

Alright, now that you're done listening to me ramble on and on about nothing... let's pick up where we last left off.

Chapter 27: The Village

Date: 7/11/2038
15:35 Hours
Subject: Lan Rodes
Location: Aircraft Carrier Kestrel, Atlantic Ocean

I blinked a couple of times as I gazed at this mysterious machine. After we were briefed on our mission, the commander told us to report to cargo bay where these scientists have set up a lab-like setting. These geeks claim to have a way to get us to Venezuela as soon as this afternoon… I think they're full of crap and they're just using us as lab Rattata.

"So this thing's… a teleporter?" I inquired suspiciously, checking to see if the scientists were serious or not. I placed my brown furred paw on the big and bulky piece of junk. It was round, seemed big enough to hold a couple of feral snorlax, and had a large window on the human sized door. But what bothered me was that it was dented in several places and had loose wires hang out of it all over the place. "I find that hard to believe."

"My thoughts exactly, Rodes. This hunk of junk looks like it belongs in the scrap heap not in a lab." A grey and red furred zangoose morph remarked as he kicked the machine with his bare feet. Strangely enough it didn't seem cause him any pain. "Does this over-sized tin can even work?"

"Raide!" A golden furred Buisel woman wearing glasses and white lab coat exclaimed in frustration as she and the other scientists in the room began to panic. "Don't touch that! You don't know long we've worked on this!"

Raide just sighed and ignored the buisel, once more kicking the 'teleporter.' "Does it look like I care? And you still haven't answered my question."

"I'm warning you, Raide!" The buisel woman furiously shouted as her glasses slid down her muzzle.

"Don't let him get to you, Rebecca." I smiled as I placed my paw on her shoulder. "He's just trying to bug you."

"Well it's working." Rebecca growled, glaring at the grinning zangoose, pausing only adjust her glasses. "You guys don't know how long we've been working on this thing."

Raide sighed and bowed his head. "No, we don't know… but I'm sure you're going to tell us." He groaned.

Rebecca's fur bristled with anger before let out an aggravated sigh. "You're damn right I am! After all, Caniner himself wanted something like this done for his own personal use! That's why he commissioned me and my team to-"

"Rebecca," Sergeant Randal cut off the water-type. "I'd hate to interrupt, but we are on a schedule. Could you please skip to the part where you teleport us to Venezuela?"

Rebecca's fur spiked up again as she held her breath, most likely resisting the urge to cuss out Randal. She released her breath a folded her arms. "It's not that simple, Sergeant. You see, this machine isn't literally a teleportation machine; it is more accurately an amplifier for psychic morphs. You know, it boosts their powers by using the special properties of the mind plates we gathered."

"WHAT?" Me and Raide shouted in unison. "How does that help us?"

Rebecca cleared her throat before calling for someone to enter the room. I froze up when the person entered the room and walked up to me. "Emerald? Emerald Wilson? Is that you?" I asked the gardevior. The psychic morph simply nodded, giving me an unnerving cold look. "I thought you-"

"There's been a change in plans, Lan… I was asked by my superiors to assist you on this mission." She quickly answered before I could even finish my sentence. "Now shall we get started?" She asked as she entered the strange machine in front of us.

"Whoa… dude, you know her?" Raide asked me. "How? I mean I've heard stories about this woman… she's one scary chick and that's coming from a zangoose!"

You don't know the half of it, Raide.

I looked away from Raide, ignoring his attempts to pry open my past and noticed Rebecca trading in white lab coat for a dark green jacket. "Hey! What do you think you're you doing?" I asked.

The Sergeant loaded his sidearm and handed it to the water type. "She's coming with us." He told me, as he helped her into the machine.

"You're kidding, right?" Raide asked. When he saw that Randal was serious, he started shaking his head. "Oh hell no! We can't have a science geek in the field with us! She'll be a sitting duck! An orange bull's eye! A target with a sign over her head, saying-" Rebecca sprayed the gray furred morph with water, effectively shutting him up. "BLECH! My mouth was open! You could've drowned me!"

"I'm perfectly capable of defending myself, Raide." She shot back. "Now shut up and get in here!"

"Why the hell do we need her?" Raide shouted.

Randal sighed before pushing the zangoose into the machine. "I told you pay attention during the briefing… Rodes, when we get to Venezuela, fill him in."

I sighed and nodded as I joined my team in the machine. "…So how exactly does this thing work?" I asked.

Rebecca closed the hatch and pressed a button by the door the machine. The device hummed to life as the room was illumined in an eerie pink color. "I won't bore you with all the science involved in the making of this machine or how it works, after all you guys are only mindless soldiers…" I'll try to forget she just said that. "…but basically, this machine sends out the special energy found in the mind plates used to make this machine. A psychic, like Miss Wilson here, could easily absorb the energy and boost her natural psychic ability ten times or greater… in theory at least…"

"And what good will that do us?" Raide impatiently asked. "Venezuela is still like three days away! What good is a supped up psychic going to do us if we're still in the middle of the ocean?"

Rebecca lashed her twin tails in barely concealed irritation before adjusting her glasses and continuing. "If you will let me finish… a psychic can only teleport itself to places it's already been to. To add on to that, it must be within a certain range. After all, no ordinary psychic can teleport from New Morph to Tokyo. The teleporting range varies on several different factors, such as age, skill, natural psychic ability and power."

"…What?" Raide asked, scratching his head.

"Forget it, Raide." Emerald suddenly interrupted. "All you need to know is that with this machine and a little luck, I might be able to teleport us to the V.Z. shores… if I had some sort of mental picture of course."

"Whoa, whoa, WAIT!" I quickly protested. "What if we don't' have that bit of luck?"

"Then I guess we're swimming to Venezuela, hope you packed your water wings." Nice to see her sense of humor hasn't changed…

"Well… how's this for a mental picture?" Rebecca asked taking out a map and pointing to a marked spot on Venezuela. "It's about a hundred miles from Guayana City and close to our objective."

"Vague… very vague…" Rebecca quickly took out a photo of a beach and showed it to Emerald… I'm starting to wonder if this is the commander's way of getting back at us for Amanda's last encounter with Caniner. "Well… I guess that will have to do…" She closed her eyes and began to focus. "…Wish for the best…"

The room began to glow from pink to a ghostly white as the gardevoir began to focus on teleporting us. Just before we disappeared I heard someone shout-out from behind us "Everyone smile and say 'cheese!'" I turned around to briefly see Amanda's smiling face before everything faded to white.


16:04 Hours
Subject: Amanda Taylor
Age: 25
Species: Human
Location: 125 Miles East of Guayana City, Venezuela

I've never been teleported before… it's kind of creepy really. You're whole world suddenly freezes as your senses grow numb and the world around you slowly fades into a bright white light. The whole process only took about a couple of seconds… but when your senses have been virtually taken away it felt a lot longer than that.

When the world faded back into existence, I sighed in relief and thanked God I was back… Only to find out that I was hovering upside-down, over a beach. Gravity quickly recaptured me and forced me back to the ground. I ended up with my head buried in the sand.

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, TAYLOR!" I heard a muffled scream, and I was quickly pulled out of the sand and greeted with the sight of a growling raichu morph leering and snarling at me. "You were supposed to stay on the ship and wait for your wounds to heal!" Rodes hissed.

I rolled my eyes. I really can't believe this guy… It's not this is the first time I've done something like this. "Oh come on, Rodes. You and I both know that I wasn't going to stay on that ship and let you guys have all the fun!" I sneered.

"Fun? There are going to be people trying to kill us! People that have powers that you could never hope to obtain and can kill you in a heartbeat just by thinking about it! Is that your idea of fun?" He asked me. I smiled and nodded. "…You have a sick and twisted idea of fun."

"Thank you for noticing." I smiled, scratching my head.

"How did you even sneak into the machine anyway? We all entered at it the same time, one of us should have noticed you entering the damn thing!" Lan cried.

"Well that's my little secret." I giggled while still scratching my head.

The bewildered look on Lan's muzzle was priceless! He simply stared at me with his eyes and mouth wide open before he cried out in frustration, clutched his ears and started pulling them. "You're driving me crazy, Taylor!" He shouted.

"That's what I'm here for, Lan!"

"Taylor, this is serious!" He shouted.

I started to furiously scratch my head, trying to get out all the sand that had gotten in my hair. "I'll say…" I grabbed a lock of my darkly colored, shoulder length hair and looked at it, groaning at the sight of tiny white grains of sand scattered throughout my locks of hair. "It'll take me weeks to get all this sand out of my hair! Damn beaches!"

"That's not what I meant!" Rodes shouted. "You're still injured, remember?"

I blankly stared at him, unsure of his point. "So?" I asked.

"You should be taking it easy! You should be resting, not here in the field!"

"You're right, I should be resting… but I'm not." I said as I brushed the sand off of my weapon and loaded it "Deal with it… you guys need me and you know it… besides… I want to know more about Caniner's pet project." I growled, as I turned to face the forest.

"…I knew it was a bad idea telling you about that…" Lan sighed. "Oh well… we should find the sergeant and the rest of the team before moving into the forest."

I just rolled my eyes as I started towards the forest. "Riiiiiiight… Okay, well good luck on finding the Sarge," I said as I started toward the forest. "I'm just gonna-" I felt something grab my ankle and trip me. I looked at my leg to find a certain raichu had wrapped his tail around my ankle.

"Not this time, Taylor. The BOTH of us are going to stay here on this beach and search for the rest of the team." Lan said as he released my leg. "Meaning, you are helping me and not running off into forest to be killed by Mew knows what." He offered his paw to help me up.

I just slapped it as picked myself off of the floor, dusting the sand off of my uniform. "Give me break, Lan! You don't need my help! Your senses are far greater than mine!" I angrily shouted.

"I'm a rodent, not a canine." Lan scowled. "Just because my sense of smell is better than yours doesn't make me a bloodhound."

"OW!" I shouted as a rock suddenly hit my head. "Who threw that?" I shouted as I rubbed the back of my head, looking for the asshole who threw the rock.

"Who the hell do you think?" A voice called back from the forest. I picked up the rock the voice threw at me and tossed back into the forest. "You missed me! AHAHAHA!" Why that no good, rotten piece of…

"THAT'S IT!" I shouted as I charged the forest in a blind rage. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" I tackled the zangoose morph to the floor and started to beat the living hell out of him.

"ACK! Taylor!" The grey furred zangoose shouted before getting a fist shoved down his throat.

Lan quickly shocked me and pulled me off of the normal-type. "Taylor! The hell is wrong with you? Control yourself!" He exclaimed he restrained my arms.

"Yeah, Taylor, save it for the Imperials!" Raide yelled while covering his muzzle. "And they say humans don't know how to throw a punch…"

The sergeant sighed as he the rest of team came out of hiding. "Amanda Taylor… why am I not surprised to see you here?" Randal shook his head disapprovingly. "I knew we should've ignored the doctor's orders and tried you down to that bed."

"Sergeant," Emerald suddenly spoke in an eerily clam voice. "Smoke coming from the west… looks like it's close by."

"The enemy?" The human asked, readying his weapon.

Emerald closed her crimson eyes and remained silent for a couple of seconds before shaking her head. "I can't tell…but I can sense some signs of life up ahead." The gardavoir replied.

"That could be the resistance members we need to link up with." Raide suggested.

"Or a trap." I quickly interjected. "We don't even know where are. For all we know, that could be an Imperial camp."

"You sound scared, Taylor." Randal teased, signaling the team to move toward the where the smoke was coming from.

"I'm not scared, just cautious." I countered, following after the team. We didn't have that far to walk; the place was less than a mile away from where we landed. When we found the source of the smoke, we came across an unsettling sight. Burning buildings, overturned vehicles, morph bodies and separated body parts littered the blood painted streets; it looks like we've stumbled across a small battle-scarred town.

It's sad to say that this isn't the first time we've come across something like this in the field. In fact, this is a common sight for us… however the same can't be said for the poor buisel scientist that we were escorting.

"Looks like we're a little late to the party." Raide griped as he kicked the mutilated body of a spearow morph that was torn in half.

"Oh…my…" That was all Rebecca could get out before losing her lunch all over my boots… just my luck. "I'm sorry, Miss Taylor… I just…"

"It's okay…" I hissed through clenched teeth. "I understand you're not used to sights like this… but did you really have to puke on my boots?"

The water-type apologized and offered to clean my boots off with water gun. I nodded; she opened her mouth and suddenly puked all over my boots again. "…That's not water!" I fumed.

"Did the local V.Z. resistance group do all this?" Raide as slowly approached a pile of mangled, burnt corpses. "Guess they don't know the meaning of the word overkill…"

As I was walking around, examining the damage done to the small town, I stumbled over thing and nearly lost my balance. I look down to see what I had tripped over only to be greeted by an unwelcoming sight. "I don't think the rebels did this." I said as I kneeled down to get a better look at a paw print over three times the size of my foot.

The rest of the team quickly gathered around the paw print. "Wow… somebody warn little red, because the big bad wolf just destroyed her hometown." …That was so corny.

"What kind of Pokémon leaves a paw print like that? It's bigger than any tracks a normal Pokémon leaves behind!" Rebecca exclaimed.

"Hmm…." Emerald looked up at some of the destroyed military vehicles and narrowed her eye. She slowly walked away from the paw print and head to the remains of an armed vehicle and placed her hand on the busted machine, looking at the faded insignia of an arcanine's head painted on its side. "This is a North American Imperial transport…" She stated.

"How can you tell?" Lan asked, looking at the vehicle's insignia.

"During the war, my father was part of the seventh infantry division, aka the 'Howling Arcanines.' He used to tell me all sorts of war stories… to add on that, he would always wear that symbol with pride." Emerald explained.

"But why are they here?" Lan asked. "Isn't this out of their jurisdiction?"

I slowly walked over to one of the dead morphs and lifted the mightyena's head. "I don't know, why don't we ask this guy?" I faced the morph's dead muzzle. "Hey buddy, what are you guys doing here?" The body didn't answer of course. "Not talking, eh?"

Lan sighed and pulled me away from the dead morph. "You have a sick sense of humor, Taylor." The raichu sighed.

Emerald suddenly turned to the remains of a small building. "We're not alone…" She suddenly said. "I sense a few others… they're alive, but just barely."

"Where?" Randal asked. The gardavoir simply pointed towards the remains of what looked to have been a bank, about a couple of blocks in front of us. The sergeant quickly took the lead and motioned for us to follow, heading in the direction the psychic had pointed in. When we arrived, the sergeant quickly ordered us to hide when we spotted a charmeleon and pikachu slowly standing up.

"Imperials!" Rebecca shouted. I quickly shut her muzzle and hushed her, hoping they didn't hear that.

Lan quickly crouched down aimed his rifle at the pikachu morph. "Should I take them out?" He asked out commanding officer.

"…Negative…" Randal replied with a smile… "I have a better idea… Rodes! You, Raide and Wilson will walk up to them ask them what they, find out what happened here and what they are doing here." The sergeant commanded. The three morphs looked him, puzzled why he would suggest something so crazy. "You have your orders, go." Randal scowled. Lan slowly nodded his head and asked Emerald and Raide to follow him.

"Sergeant, you sure this is a good idea?" Rebecca suddenly spoke up. "I mean those three look and act nothing like the stereotypical imperial soldier. What if they're found out?"

Randal simply chuckled asked us to quickly and quietly follow him.


Subject: Lan Rodes
16:34 Hours
Location: Unnamed Town, 125 Miles East of Guayana City

"This is a bad idea." Raide whispered to me as we approached the imperial soldiers.

"Shut it, Raide." I retorted as we were spotted by two morphs. "HEY!" I called out to them. "Are you guys alright?"

The lizard and mouse quickly looked at each then rushed up to meet us. "Thank Mew! A search party's come to rescue us!" The pikachu girl cheered.

"What happened here?" Emerald asked, noticing the duo's tattered uniforms. "You look like you've been in the quite the fight."

The pikachu girl gave the charmeleon morph behind her an uncertain look before looking back at Emma. "We… were attacked by these… these monsters!" She exclaimed.

"Monsters?" Raide laughed. "What kind of monster? Godzilla?" I elbowed the zangoose in the ribs and told him to shut up before the young electric mouse could continue.

"This is serious! We need more back up! The rebels have some kind of crazy biological weapon!"

The girl's word caught us by surprise when accused the rebels of doing this. "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "What kind of weapon?"

Before the girl could answer, the charmeleon quickly covered his partner's muzzle with his clawed hands. "Please excuse my friend… She hasn't been the same since our last campaign." He sighed. "Honestly, we don't what hit us. There were these… creatures…"

"Creatures?" I quickly interjected. "You sure you weren't just attacked by Pokémon?" I asked.

"They weren't Pokémon! They weren't even morphs! I… I don't what they were…" He started to shutter. "I'm sorry… It's just…"

Raide groaned before pulling me away from the lizard. "This guy is nuts!" We whispered to me. "How do we know he's not just traumatized because of a recent firefight?"

"Remember the intel?" I asked the normal type. "Caniner's working on some sort of weremorph project. Perhaps this village was attacked by weremorphs and these two witnessed the whole thing." I suggested.

The zangoose took one quick look at the shaky couple and shook his head. "For all we know, they could've just dreamt the whole story up after being knocked out by the local resistance." He shrugged.

I took a look at the duo who were telling Emerald everything that had happened. It seemed like the gardavoir was quietly listened with great interest, nodding a couple of times to show she was still listening. "Perhaps… but we don't know that for sure, let's just talk to these guys and piece together what happened to this little village."

Emerald lightly tugged my tail and told me everything that the Imperial soldiers told. She explained that these two were part of a large patrol that was stationed at this town to watch over its population. Apparently many of the morphs in this town were miners, every day the morphs would take a truck a nearby quarry where they would excavate the land in hopes of finding evolution stones and elemental plates hidden deep within the earth's crust. After being dug up, the stones and plates are transported to a lab owned by Andrew Caniner.

"Well that explains what these guys are doing here." Raide said after Emerald was done explaining. "Now mind telling me what the hell hit this place?"

"Want to take a guess?" Emerald asked.

"You know I'm lousy at guessing games, Emma." I replied.

"Right… well according to those two, they were only about five of them." She began.

"Five of what?" Raide asked.

"That's what they neglected mention, they don't know exactly what it was that had attacked, but they kept talking about seeing this one human who before their very eyes transformed into some kind of monster." Emerald told us.

"Sounds like something out of a bad horror flick." Raide chuckled.

"You have a better explanation?" I asked the Zangoose.

"Well it could've been the work of rebels. You know how destructive those humans are."

Something hit the back of my head, causing me to stumble forward a bit. "HEY!" The Pikachu girl suddenly shouted. "What are you guys yammering about? Shouldn't you guys be calling for an evac or something? We need to get out of here before they come back!"

"I think she likes you, Rodes." Raide teased. This guy's even more of an asshole than Amanda.

I cursed my luck as I turned and faced the two morphs with a nervous smile and drooping ears. Now what do we do? The Sarge wanted us to find what out what these two knew but never said what we should do afterwards.

"What's wrong? Why do you look worried?" The female chu asked me.

"Yes, Corporal," Randal began as he suddenly appeared right next to me. "why do you look worried?" The human smiled.

Both of the Imperials froze as both Randal and Rebecca came out of hiding and in front us. "…Y-you… you're not imperial soldiers… are you…" The charmeleon asked before feeling someone tap him on the shoulder. When he turned around he was greet with a kick to groin followed by a punch to the muzzle. Before his partner could react, Amanda quickly jabbed the girl in her cheek, punched her the gut and finished with a headbutt her in the pikachu's skull.

"GAH!" Amanda cried as the electric-type fell to the floor. She clutched her head and started rubbing her forehead. "Ow… my head."

"Talk about-"

"Make the pun and I'll kill you, Raide!" She angrily shouted as she approached us. She removed her hands and showed me her forehead. "Am I bleeding?"

"No more than usual." I sighed.

"You will be when I'm through with you, human!" The pikachu yelled as she slowly got back to her feet.

I quickly aimed my rifle at her, causing her to freeze in both shock and fear. "Don't move…" I ordered. Her fear quickly turned to anger as her red cheeks began to spark. "You know as well as I do that electric attacks won't do you any good." I growled.

"You… you traitor!" She shouted. "I expected better from one of my own kind! How can you turn on your own people?" She roared

I couldn't help but let out a laugh. "You stupid little girl… You're the traitor here, not me!" I shot back. "You Imperials make me sick… you believe you're doing good when in reality you're doing nothing more than destroying lives!"

"What do you mean?" She asked me. "The filthy humans destroy lives, we save them!"

"What?" Amanda shrieked. "You little rat!" I shot Amanda a glare to silence her before replying to what the idiot before me had just said.

Raide suddenly started laughing, catching everyone's attention. "Sorry about that, guys… just the thought of an Imperial Soldier saving another living being is made enough to me laugh." The gray zangoose smiled.

"You have no right to speak ill of the Imperial Army." The charmeleon groaned as he picked himself off of the floor. "We are strong and brave… unlike you traitors."

Raide stopped laughing and his smiled disappeared when he faced the fire-type. "…If I didn't think it was a waste of my time, I'd gladly slice both of your necks open and watch you bleed to death. You think you're strong? It doesn't take much strength to set a hospital on fire. Think you're brave? When do the brave kill innocent civilians? Better question, why are you guys turning around and attacking your own people?" He furiously shouted.

"You guys are the ones doing that, not us!"

"Then explain to me why imperial soldiers destroyed my hometown and killed my baby sister in front of my eyes!" Raide shouted. The two morphs gazed back in shock. I quickly tapped the infuriated zangoose on the shoulder, getting his attention. He took a deep breath and calmed a bit before turning around and walking away from the two. "…Don't we have someplace to be, sergeant?"

"We do… however we're a little lost and may need some directions…" Randal smiled as he looked at the two morphs in front of us.

The pikachu shot our team leader a confused look. "Someplace to be… the lab! You're looking to attack the lab?" She shouted.

"Perhaps… perhaps not… not wise to tell the enemy what we're up to, is it?" The human girnned.

The girl snarled, once more sparking electricity. I quickly stood in between the sergeant and the electric mouse. "What are you? His pet?" She insulted me.

"…If you're looking for lab 104… then I'll tell you…" The charmeleon suddenly blurted out. "But you have to promise to let us go free."

The pikachu girl looked at her partner in shock. "R-Rubin… why-"

"HA! Nice try!" Amanda laughed as she drew her weapon. "How stupid do you think we are? We're at war here! You are our prisoners! You don't get to mak-"

"Done." Randal suddenly nodded. "You can go free… if and only if you point us in the direct of the lab…"

The charmeleon nodded before pointing north. "It's just through the forest… keep heading north and you'll find it easily…"

"…Go…" Randal commanded. Rubin quickly picked himself, grabbed his partners paw and ran away from us, heading deeper into the destroyed town.

"…Sir… why did you let them go? What if they're lying?"

Randal smiled as he walked into the direction the lizard was pointing in. "There is a method to my madness, Rodes… as you will soon see…" He looked into the sky and watched the sunset in the distance. "…We better hurry, it'll be dark soon." And with that, he lead our squad deeper into enemy territory… Sure hope releasing those two was a good idea…

I can't believe I was actually able to reuse some of the characters from the older chapters. Hurray for me.

I hope you guys are too disappointed with this chapter... Don't worry the fun stuff's about to begin...

And those wondering when we'll be going be checking back with Mark, don't worry, it won't be long.

As Always: Love it, Hate it, Just Review it.
Gunner out.