Welcome back, everyone. So how many of you are still recovering from shock? Well, based on the reviews I received, I'd say that's a good number. As we learned last time, Tori is indeed the rogue that we were looking for all along, so who saw that coming...no hands? I thought as much. Well, now we get into the back story of Porygon and see how it all came to this. Hope you're ready to meet the true Mary-sue of this story. And also, after a cursory reading throughout my story, I found that this was more based in drama than I intended, so I am going to change the genre.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN POKEMON, NO MATTER HOW MUCH I MAY LIKE TO. ENJOY.


Chapter 28: Deception with Humans

My eye didn't stop releasing the salty tears that fell from it. And in the end, I was truly powerless to stop any of this from happening. On my knees, I began to pound the ground hoping that it would bring about some sort of rectification for what had occurred. But I knew that nothing I did would change the truth...Tori was the rogue all along, and it was my job to arrest him, and bring him before Arceus. But how could I arrest my...best friend?


On the battlefield, Toxicroak was still in complete horror after the revelation that Tori was the Pokémon we all knew as one that was never defeated; Porygon. Tori had lost emotion in his eyes, and turned back to his younger brother, Kaoru. Kaoru smiled at him, and Tori returned it as the young child swam back to the stands. Toxicroak watched the boy return to his seat, and then back up at the Porygon who pointed his sword directly at him.

"How can he be so accepting of you?" Toxicroak asked.

"It's simple," said Tori. "Children are so much more manipulative, and accepting of things, as compared to adults. I simply told him the truth; I was a creature he had learned about only in legends, and that I was desperate need of a place to stay, and we concocted a plan together. He was so excited to finally have, as he put it, a person to call 'Onii-san.'"

"And his parents?" Toxicroak said as Tori pointed up to the bell I held in my hands.

"After being alive as long as I have, you pick up on a few trade secrets on the internet," Tori explained. "Hypnosis by use of an item to focus on is child's play compared to concealing one's identity. As for that, I hypnotized myself into believing that I was indeed human. If you are what you think, then everyone else thinks so too. Long term hypnosis though, can also cause small parts of yourself to leak through. As such, my endurance, my intelligence, and my more obvious traits began to show through."

"Such as?" Toxicroak asked as he moved closer to his sword.

"Hair dye can only work for so long," Tori answered cryptically. "Had I known that, I would have applied it more so before Duskull showed up," he said as I cringed. "Black hair dye is good at covering up lighter shades of color, but against a darker shade like blue, it tends to hide itself more easily, and make it seem as though it already is colored. The first day Duskull came to my school, he had already seen that my hair had blue highlights, not realizing it was my actual hair color beginning to seep through."

"How interesting," Toxicroak said as he lunged forward after quickly grabbing his sword.

Stabbing through to Tori, Toxicroak chuckled as the Porygon disappeared from in front of him, and grabbed him by the back of his coat behind him. Lifting him up by nearly a foot and a half, Tori chuckled as a series of electrical currents began to course through his body. His chuckle turned into a maniacal grin as both his, and Toxicroak's body were engulfed in blue electric discharges.

Toxicroak writhed in pain from the electricity, and then stumbled in his getting up after Tori threw him across the battlefield. Charging at him again, Toxicroak held out his other shear, to attack Tori, only for it to be caught straight on. Toxicroak looked at Tori, and saw his shear piercing into his skin, but with no visible damage being done. Tori began to slowly clench his hands around the sharpened part of Toxicroak's clothing, and proceeded to crush it within seconds.

Recoiling back in pain, Toxicroak held his arm, and looked at the rogue as the audience wasn't sure what to make of the situation. Tori instead held out his hand to Toxicroak at the point where it had been pierced, showing a metallic shine healing the wound. Showing off the wound on his back from earlier as well, Toxicroak saw the same metallic shine. The shine only appeared around the wound, and seemed to be either healing or protecting Tori from something.


"Conversion2," I said by myself. "Only Pokémon from the Porygon evolutionary line can make access to it. After being struck by any kind of move, the attack behaves as an elemental shift, turning the user into the element that can resist the type the best. Toxicroak's Poison Jab made it possible for him to be a steel type for the past ten minutes."

"ITZAL!" Cassandra shouted as she pointed towards Kirlia who looked to be in shock.

I shook off my own problems, hoping to deal with them later, and ran down to where the psychic Pokémon was faltering in her footing. I knelt down next to her, as she was beginning to lose consciousness, and she whispered something into my ear that turned my fear of the kind of Pokémon Tori was, into horror. I walked over to the railing to catch myself as I held my hand over my mouth.

"Itzal, what's wrong?" Cassandra asked as I looked behind me at Kimiko who was still trying to make sense of the situation.

"Kirlia, since coming here, has been shown to be able to calculate a Pokémon's level rank, or percentile, by sensing the brain waves inside of it," I explained. "Kirlia just told me, that she couldn't sense the level rank that Tori's currently at. She can read into any number in the ninetieth percentile, which only leave one number left that Tori can be at."

"Well then it would have to be one hundred, what's the big deal?" Cassandra asked.

"When a Pokémon reaches the hundredth percentile for its level, it reaches its highest power imaginable," I explained. "But very few Pokémon have ever been able to get to that kind of level aside from legendary Pokémon. And Tori also said that he had been alive for a very long time."

"You don't mean," Bayleef said in the back as the other Pokémon stood up.

"He's not a Porygon, he's the Porygon," I said as the syntax made all the difference to them.

"What's the difference?" Cassandra asked.

"Adding 'the' to something's name makes it more prominent, and turns it into a proper noun," Kimiko said still watching Tori intently.

"Exactly," I said. "When Arceus created our world, he made at least two of every Pokémon aside from legendaries, and a Pokémon known as Porygon because of its genetic make-up. Most organic creatures are made of carbon, ghosts are made of ectoplasm, and Porygon is made of a different material; silicon."

"The base semi-conductor in computer chips," Kimiko said from aside.

"Precisely," I agreed. "Being made of such a rare material, Arceus could only make one, and given his level rank, Tori is that Pokémon. Porygon was relatively undiscovered until about the late 1950s, by your world's time. By that time, Tori was the only Porygon in existence."

"How do you know about that?" Cassandra asked.

"It's a story used to frighten young children, and Pokémon at night," Drowzee explained. "We were always told that if we were to misbehave that this Porygon would come, take us away, and do unspeakable things to us despite our pathetic pleas for him to stop. We always perceived Porygon as this blood thirsty beast that had no conscience."

Cassandra turned back to the battlefield, and saw Tori with the most emotionless look on his eyes, and holding up his hands as Toxicroak charged in to attack him again. She furrowed her eyes as she saw him only fight him off, and never willingly go after him as opposed to Toxicroak.

"He doesn't seem so dangerous," Cassandra. "You sure you guys aren't thinking of some other Pokémon?"

"No," Kirlia said struggling to her feet. "The story of Porygon is a famous one, and we all know why he's able to do things beyond his capabilities. In the 1960s, by your world's history, the World Wide Web was developed as packet switch networks to connect from place to place. The entire genetic make-up of Porygon is the same as a computer chip, meaning he can pass through technological devices at will."

"Aside from that, he's able to access any form of information he wants from the device, and can learn how to do anything, whether it be hypnosis, martial art strategies, or salsa dancing for all we know," Lopunny explained further as she sat down next to Zoroark, resting his head in her lap. "But what is more impressive to us than that, is that he's been able to able to hide his genetic code from even Arceus. How was he able to do that?"


I kept my eyes down on the battlefield, and watched Toxicroak fly across the stage once again. He stood up, pointed an accusing finger at Tori, and asked the same inquiry that Lopunny just had.

"Well," Tori began. "As I explained, the use of hypnosis on myself erased any memories of my being a Pokémon, and as I said, when you forget what you are, people also tend to forget, but as the old adage goes, 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.'"

"And Arceus?" Toxicroak asked as his determination to beat Tori puzzled me.

"My name in this world is Hagane," Tori reiterated. "When spelled in the right kanji, it can be read as 'metal.' I'll admit it's one of my favorite elements to convert to with Conversion2, seeing as it has all those resistances, but Arceus has a way of peeking into a Pokémon's private affairs, you know."

Toxicroak gritted his teeth, and made another dash at Tori, probably tired of all the mind games he was playing as things started to make more and more sense to me.

"Tori said that Arceus has a way of knowing what we're up to all the time," I reminded myself as the battle below continued. "It's something that Arceus can do that no other Pokémon can. No other, except Porygon. That's it, both can change their elements at will, and Tori admitted to having an affinity towards steel. Other pokémon have the capabilities to change their own elements, but that normally involves very specific requisites in terms of weather changes, overall changes in their power fluxes, and a whole mess of others that put Arceus and Porygon on a near equalized plane. But how does Arceus keep tabs on us? Argh, if only Quilava was down here instead of up there with Gallade."

Toxicroak gripped onto the casing that was his cane, and made a swing towards Tori who made a low dodge. Snapping back up, Tori gave a wide smile that made Toxicroak recoil back with fear, as something began to form in his hand. My mind was still wracking over Tori's cryptic clues when I heard a powerful blast from the battlefield. I regained perception of what was around me, and saw Toxicroak flying past the majority of the battlefield before desperately sticking the cane deep in the ground.

The cane stuck in the ground, but Toxicroak lost his grip, and fell a few feet away from the cane with Tori gripping onto it. Toxicroak chuckled at the sight of Tori swinging the cane around himself so aloofly, and then held his head down waiting for the, as he thought it would be, cries of pain. To his dismay, however, as he looked up, Tori kept the cane in his hand, and then made a quick motion striking Toxicroak across his face.

"H-How can you do that?" Toxicroak asked. "That cane is..."

"Covered in Black Sludge, I know," Tori said sticking it in the ground. "A curious item that only has an effect on the Pokémon that's holding it. It periodically heals the damage of any poison type, but inflicts damage just the same to other Pokémon. Truth be told, I shouldn't be able to hold this because even as a steel type, I'm not protected by it."

"Then how?" the poison Pokémon asked.

"Do you know what Trace is?" Tori asked as he crouched down next to Toxicroak. "It's an ability a lot of psychic Pokémon have, but it's also Porygon's ability, along with Download. Trace copies the ability of a Pokémon that it faces in battle, and being the genius I am, I have perfected the ability."

"What?" Toxicroak exclaimed.

"Oh yes," Tori answered. "I have been with the Magic Guard ability since a few hours before the dimensional cross. Now, if it has nothing to do with direct damage, it has no effect. It's an ability used by Pokémon such as Reuiniclus and Sigilyph, but other than that, it's fairly rare. In the end, my friend, you lost the minute you attacked me."

"It still doesn't answer my question," Toxicroak said just above a dull roar. "How did you fool Arceus?"

"That answer is now obvious after some thought," I said as though talking to Toxicroak. "Arceus has sixteen individual plates that allow him to change from type to type. But with them as a medium, he is able to look at any Pokémon who falls under that certain type category. If Tori has been able to stay out of Arceus' sight so far, it's because he's been transforming from normal to steel so that his presence cannot be seen by Arceus. But the only way to pull that off is by..."

"Having one of the plates of Arceus himself," Tori said finishing my thought waving the large silver plate in front of him. "This way, as long as I remain in a steel form, Arceus can't detect me."

"You dare to steal from the Great Arceus!" Toxicroak shouted, the loudest he ever had as he charged at Tori without fear of consequences.

"How pathetic," Tori said holding out his hand with a swirling mass forming in the palm. "Psybeam," he said as his voice began to lessen, and the mass shot toward the man, blasting back away from both the battlefield, body of water around it, and deep into the stands with several of the spectators unsure of what just happened.


Toxicroak disappeared from view, and Tori looked out at the spectators. He chuckled slightly as he turned his head toward the higher stands where we were all standing in complete shock of his power. Looking down at his body, and away from his face, I could see Tori's right handing cringing as he faced directly at me as he seemed to turn his glare at me. My turmoil, fear, and sadness suddenly turned into rage, anger, and desire for vengeance. Cassandra could barely catch a glimpse of me as I disappeared into the ground below me with my mask falling over my face. She turned back towards the battlefield, and saw Tori following something with his eyes in the water before holding his hand out towards it, releasing the same attack he had before.

As the attack hit the surface of the water, the entirety of the audience looked at the attacked area with a look of bewilderment. Whether it was the fact that Tori had seen something that they hadn't, the idea that something was going on around them that they couldn't quite understand as of yet, or whether it was the sight of me, the mask covering my face, and my cloak the rest of my body. Tori gave slight chuckle as he leaned up against a piece of the wood in the battlefield sticking straight up after the battle that ensued between him and Toxicroak. My hands already had two Shadow Ball attacks prepared, and somehow, the look in his eyes made me feel as though he already knew my efforts would be less than useless.

"This stops now, Tori," I said, holding my arms out as though I were ready to fight with everything I had. "I won't allow you to sully the name of us, and turn everything into your own little game."

"Since when did you, the one pokémon who vowed revenge against Arceus for everything he had done to us who left through the dimension rift, become his little errand boy?" Tori asked, obviously not taking the situation seriously, as opposed to the turmoil that I still felt in my chest. "Not saying that it doesn't suit you, Duskull. You weren't always the one to let yourself stick to one side for too long."

"What are you saying?" I asked, following him with my eyes as he pushed himself off the stray wooden board, and began walking around the battlefield. "Are you questioning my loyalty?"

"Without a doubt," Tori answered, reaching to the point behind me, but still knew I was aware of his position. "You were once a pokémon who followed after the command of your surrogate father, Dusknoir. Until the day you became cursed by him, and you found yourself without a home for the first time in your life. Following that, any form of alliance you made with any of the pokémon in our world was soon broken after your curse was found out. Then you thought that Arceus could help, be a sort of beacon of light for your dark cloudy world, but then soon found yourself being the one betrayed. And now that he wants your help, you find no problem in becoming his little puppet, dancing to the tunes he plays for you."

"Shut your mouth, you criminal!" I shouted, no longer able to see the boy I met at the beginning of my life in Japan, but now, a man completely evil to the core.

"Am I really the criminal?" Tori asked. "Let me ask you Duskull; did Arceus ever tell you of the day I was discovered by humans? Did he ever tell you about what really happened to the point where there was no lie involved with the story? Did he ever tell you the actual truth?"

"The story is not one that goes unheard of, Tori," I said. "There's not one pokémon in our world that doesn't know of your exploits, and none of them are very thrilled of the stories. Discovered by humans nearly sixty years ago, you found yourself in a very strange position; allow yourself to be studied, or to stand by the side of your comrades and keep the mysteries of the elusive Porygon alive. You chose to side with the humans, and in turn you betrayed even them, turning yourself into a near mass-murderer. Had I known you were one of the pokémon to go through the rift in space, it would've been easier for me to pin you as the rogue and not Toxicroak."

"Toxicroak?" Tori questioned. "Don't make me laugh! That one is nothing more than one of Arceus' stooges, playing to the favors of his beloved king so as to keep his own self from taking the punishment for his own sins. Although, seeing as how Arceus did say that the rogue was from Sinnoh, it makes sense. As for me; you know nothing of what I went through as what I am. There is not any person, nor pokémon, who knows what really happened the first years of my freedom from that stone prison I lived in."

"What do you mean by that, exactly?" I asked, beginning to turn my own body around to keep my eye on him as he moved.

"The story of Porygon is the same at the beginning true, but why don't you allow me to show it to you, and your dearly beloved," he said, turning his eyes to Cassandra, closing them slightly, as she became overtaken by the psychic power coursing through her body, and quickly fainted, limped over the railing. "Welcome, Duskull, and Miss Yorkshire, to the time when I was nothing more than a new discovery."


I opened my eyes to see that the entire land around was stone walls, and a large depression in the ground in between. Easily identified as an archeological sight, I watched the primitive efforts of the men working to unearth the remains of previously unknown prehistoric pokémon. Working with small shovels and brushes to look carefully at each individual fossil, the men began to work around a giant monolith in the center of the dig. With each brush stroke, the carving in the large slab of stone began to make more sense to me, as Cassandra looked down at the rock, finding it to be nothing more than a series of random shapes. I turned away from her, and saw the final part of the design become clear as the basic design for the pokémon Porygon.

"I was discovered as a living entity of the silicon traces my body was made of in the trenches of that monolith," Tori explained. "I didn't appear from that slab of stone until a week before the dig was going to close, and the research facility working there would've lost all of their assets. I revealed myself willingly to the humans."

"That was your crime?" Cassandra asked. "Simply helping some people out?"

"Arceus is an old fashioned kind of guy," Tori explained, talking directly to her. "He believes that humans have the right to learn about us, but feels that they must go through the trials of learning without our intervention. That was my first charge against Arceus."

"You wouldn't be considered a rogue pokémon, if you were to have any less than that I suppose," I said as Tori just gave a small chuckle. "We were always told of the great destruction you brought to the humans and the pokémon surrounding you at the time."

"Surrounding me is an appropriate choice of words," Tori said as the scene around us began to shift. "This was my home," he said, the three of us now in a pristine laboratory, with the actual Porygon pokémon being studied by the humans, with absolutely no resistance on his part. "The humans' strides in technology were mostly based on studying my physiology. The use of the silicon chip which my body is made of one hundred percent was the most prevelant at that point, however."

"So, where's the destruction?" Cassandra asked as Tori just gave a slight chuckle.

"Arceus quickly found out about what I was doing," Tori explained as a large hoard of pokémon surrounded the building and began firing multiple attacks. "He sent some of his more loyal subjects to bring me forward about the crime I committed several months before. A couple of those faces seem familiar to you, don't they, Duskull?" he asked as I turned around to face the scene and saw, at the front lines, two very specific pokémon species.

The first was a small black figure, his eyes made of two jewels, and his mouth lined with two rows of sharp teeth, perfect for eating its perfect food. To its side stood a figure much more imposing; two red shears at the ends of his arms, large cheeks sacs inflating and deflating as it breathed. The sight of both Sableye and Toxicroak gave me more perspective on the matter, and I was slowly beginning to think that Sableye knew, on this world, who was the rogue from the start. Toxicroak, on the other hand, so filled up with rage wouldn't be able to discern Tori as Porygon because of the measures he had taken to hide himself.

"Come out, now, Porygon!" Toxicroak shouted at the door to the facility. "Or we're coming in to get you, and believe me, that will be the unpleasant way," he finished, cracking his knuckles to put emphasis in his words.

"We don't wish to harm you as much as my friend suggests," Sableye said, much more reassuringly. "But as it stands, Arceus must speak with you on your actions. If you give yourself up, willingly, it may put in a good word for you when it comes time for the trial."

We waited for something to happen for several minutes; neither Sableye, nor Toxicroak made any form of attack any more, and the rest of the pokémon behind them had ceased as well. As the doors to the research lab swung open, Toxicroak was quickly met by a blast of psychic energy, forcing him into the midst of the crowd behind him. Sableye turned around to check on his partner's condition, but quickly turned around at the sound of electricity beginning to form behind him. The second Sableye faced Porygon, they were mere inches from each other.

"Out of my way!" Porygon shouted, rocketing past Sableye, and reached the center of the crowd.

As the pokémon surrounded Porygon, relatively quickly, as though they had been planning for a situation like that, the expressionless face of the cyber pokémon quickly looked around at each of the different pokémon about to attack. Studying each of his assailants, Porygon's body began to charge electricity more wildly, Sableye quickly ducked off to the side, and hid behind a large boulder, hoping to ensure his safety in what was sure to come next. With a mere second of silence in between when the charge stopped, and what happened next, my eye was in shock at the power exuded my Tori even sixty years ago.

"Discharge is not an attack that can be escaped with ease," Tori said, finding no remorse for his actions even back then. "A pokémon can go through their entire lives without ever reaching the top level, but there's something different about me in that respect."

"You're not a basic carbon life form," I speculated as Tori nodded. "Porygon can extend their own lives by jumping in and out of cyberspace, preserving them, for what seems like centuries at a time. It's why Tori looks so much younger than the others that his age became when he got here."

"Not only that, but because Porygon have near infinite life spans, it's easy for us to level up to the one hundredth percentile when we really put our backs into it," Tori explained. Aside from that, if we ever were to begin feeling fatigued, it would become like opening a saved file on a computer, bringing us back to a point where we feel we were at our strongest."

"This entire thing is making my head hurt," Cassandra noted as Tori motioned back down for the scene where the attacked had ceased.

"After the attack, all the pokémon affected by it were defeated," Tori explained. "Sableye was able to hide, and in the end we battled for what seemed like hours on end," he continued seeing the multiple shots of basic attack from both pokémon being fired in succession with little fatigue being showed by either one. "But after that, things got to be more chatty, if you will."

"How can you betray Arceus like that?" Sableye asked. "What has he ever done to you to make you want to become a human's science project?"

"Because with those people, I have an actual purpose in my life again," Porygon answered. "There was never a time in my life where I felt like I was actually needed for something. And you know what? I am nothing more than science. I'm the only thing that the humans can look to for answers about how the world around them works, and how they can control it with technology. One day, even the ghost types with their spiritual based beliefs, will find that nothing can ever be fully explained by just believing in something. One day, there will be a ghost pokémon who looks to the elder and no longer ask what something is, but rather why something is."

"You're mad!" Sableye shouted, preparing another Shadow Ball, and hurling it towards the ground, to kick up a large portion of dirt. "This ends now, Porygon!" he shouted as the dirt seemed to blind Porygon, and Sableye ran towards him with his claws outstretched.

"You're right," Porygon said as Tori said it at the exact same time. "But what ends now is this; the dominion of Arceus!" he shouted, intercepting Sableye's attack by shooting a concentrated beam of lightning at him.


At the final attack, Tori's memories began to fade away, and both Cassandra and I were returned to the battlefield. My breathing was labored; there was something about the way that the actual scene of what happened that day played out that made me feel as though there still had to be more. Tori looked down the battlefield at me, and motioned for me with his hand.

"I'm still not done with you, detective," Tori said. "Didn't you say that you were going to have to do your duty as charged to you by Arceus? Besides, you haven't told me one thing; why did Arceus say I was from Sinnoh?"

"It's because of what you can turn into," I explained. "Your evolution reaches from the regions of Kanto, Johto, and then to Sinnoh in your final form. The roots of the Porygon family all trace back to their final form in Sinnoh."

"Yes, and now that you and I are here, about to give the battle of our lives," Tori began, reaching into his pocket, and pulling out something round and reflective. "I believe I need to stack the odds in my favor," he said, holding out the disc to show me the writing decorating its body with the word, "U-P-G-R-A-D-E."


Chapter twenty eight complete. I know you all want to kill me right now for not updating in a few months, but I think that I can get back on track with this story if I just remember the limits I've placed on myself, then I can get this story back on track, and hopefully finished before this school year is out. So you should all probably be expecting me to finish this story first, okay?

Chapter twenty nine preview: Tori has done the unthinkable, and pulled out the mysterious Upgrade item. What does this mean for Duskull who still has yet to arrest his best friend, and for one of the people watching who's feelings on the matter are still unknown. Next time: Evolution with Humans.