Me: You see; what did I tell you. It was a challenge, but I managed to get the chapter out on time this week!

Jack: *Sarcastically* Oh joy, oh bliss; three cheers for the best author in the world.

Me: I'd like to see you do a better job.

Jack: Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.

Jack trudged up to the top of a particularly steep hill, and looked around at the landscape; they hadn't seen any trace of a forest for days, and it was nearly high noon. It was just yesterday that Nicholas had left them, heading off perpendicular to the path they were travelling; apparently, Nicholas wanted to take a detour around the rough terrain that was now slowing Jack and co. down to a Slugma's pace.

Jack called to the rest of his team that the coast was clear, and they followed him up the hill; all eight of them. Jason, Cap, Katana, Lucy, Wendy, Aura, Solomon, and now Ivy as well. After Nicholas left, Ivy's arrival had helped the team's morale immensely; still, none of the nine travellers was exactly cheerful.

By far the most effected, by both Nicholas's departure and Ivy's arrival, was Lucy; she had grown very close to Hunter and Frostbite, seeing as they had gone through just as much pain as she had. She liked Katana and Wendy of course, but they just couldn't connect with her on the same level.

Ivy, however, understood her perfectly; she knew what it was like, both to be shunted from one owner to another, and to lose someone dear to you. Back when Jack was in Eterna, Lucy and Ivy had formed... not so much a friendship, as an understanding of one another; at that point, neither of them made friends easily.

Now though, they'd both come a long way; when Ivy joined the team, the first thing she did was walk up to Lucy and say,

"So Lucy; how are you these days?"

Ever since then, the two of them had stayed separate from the main group; they were only interested in catching up with each other on events since they'd last met. Jack could tell, even from a distance, that Lucy had cheered up a lot.

As for the rest of the team, they weren't so lucky; they'd all lost at least one close friend, and Lucy was keeping Ivy all to herself. Not that anyone blamed her. Still, it was a decidedly gloomy group that met on the hill for lunch that day.

On account of their not passing through any forests recently, the group's food supply had begun to dwindle; they had enough food for a week or so, but after that they'd be on hard rations. As it was though, they still had plenty of food for now, and they needed something to cheer them up a little; so, Katana cooked them up a small feast, using every different kind of berry and spice they had.

The end result was a mouth-watering selection of pie-like delicacies, each one tasting different from the last, and each one more delicious. To supplement this, Jack managed to rustle up a few good-sized quail. (A real delicacy, on account of non-Pokémon animals being very rare in those days; aside from being raised by humans on farms.) In all, the meal did indeed lift their spirits; at least enough to warrant a few contented smiles.

After they'd sat around for a while and rested, they packed up and got moving again; Jack contemplated the extra-large set of hills in front of them, more like a small mountain range truth be told, and debated going around them. He decided against it, for the main reason that he didn't know how far out of their way they'd have to go to do so; so, setting his jaw, he started up the first hill.

When he reached the top of the hill, he had a clear view of the surrounding landscape; the hill he'd chosen to climb was the tallest one for miles. That was Jack's first thought; his second concerned a strange building nestled between two hills. Jack sent a mental probe towards the building, but he couldn't sense anything; the building was completely deserted.

His curiosity aroused, Jack called for his team to come on up; instead of waiting for them, he telekinetically flicked himself into the air and soared down down the hill towards his target. Behind him he could hear the others shouting for him to wait up, but he didn't stop until he was standing in front of the large door in the front of the building; only then did he stop and wait for his team to catch up.

Aura arrived a full hundred yards ahead of everyone else; she slithered up beside Jack and said, "I can see why you didn't want to wait for the others."

Jack nodded. "I've never seen anything like it; even in all the human towns and cities we've been through."

It really was a strange-looking building; it looked to have been built partially into the side of the adjacent hill. The part of it that they could see was long, low, and flat; made of corrugated metal siding, painted in splotches of earthy colors, and with no windows to be seen. Painted on the metal door in the front of the building, was a large letter A.

But the truly strange part was the three concrete towers rising from the hill beside it; Jack assumed that the towers connected to the part of the building that was underground. The sides of the building, and the nearby hillside as well, were peppered with old scorch marks and craters; something big had happened here, but not recently.

A few seconds later the rest of the team arrived, with Jason in the lead; once they were all there, Jack stepped forward and gave the door a push. It was jammed shut, but Jack blasted it open with a burst of aura.

"So" he said with a smile. "It looks like nobody's been in here in a long time, so who feels like doing a little exploring?"

Everyone peered into the dingy, dark depths of the windowless building, but nothing moved; nothing jumped out at them, nothing made ominous creaking sounds in the darkness. It was, quite simply, empty; but somehow, its lifeless emptiness was creepier than any amount of spooks or jump-scares.

Of the eight members of Jack's team, only Lucy and Jason wanted to come with him; the others waited outside for them, with jokingly given orders to scream and run if anything happened.

The darkness inside the building was no problem for Jack, Jason, or Lucy; Lucy could see in the dark as well as any Dark-type could, and Jack and Jason could sense their surroundings thanks to their aura-vision. Still, the further in they went the more uneasy the three of them got; it was as if invisible eyes were watching them.

They walked down a long hallway, broken up by doors that led into other rooms; they went into every room they came to, but most of them were empty except for dusty metal chairs and desks. The chairs obviously had not been used for quite some time and were missing their seats, and the desks were all full of dust. In fact, the whole building was covered in piles of dust.

Then, Jack realized something that set every nerve in his body on edge; it wasn't dust, the whole building was covered in piles of ashes! The ashes under the metal chair frames was their missing seats; the ashes on and in the metal desks was what was left of the papers and documents they once held. Suddenly, the burnt and blackened patches on the hillside made sense; the entire building had been set on fire.

Standing there, in what must have once been an office, Jack could almost feel the heat of the flames as they swept through the building; he could almost hear the screams of the poor people who must have worked there. He stood in that office, watching the flames curl around the door frame; smoke filling the room. Then, through the smoke, he saw something floating; he saw two eyes like headlights, then everything went black. He screamed.

"Jack!"

Jack opened his eyes, and realized that he was on the floor; Jason and Lucy were standing over him with worried expressions, and Jason was shaking him back and forth. He sat up, and immediately put a hand to his head; he had a splitting migraine.

"Thank goodness you're alright," Lucy said, showing her relief by licking his face.

"Y-yeah," Jack said, wiping the saliva off his cheek. "I'm okay, I guess.

"What happened?" Jason demanded. "You screamed, then you just collapsed!"

Jack looked at the Lucario, then at the room around them, and he shivered in fear.

"I... I d-don't know," he said, shaking. "I saw a f-fire, this whole p-place was b-burning."

Jason nodded. "That would explain all this dust, and the lack of anything flammable."

"We have to get out of here," Jack said, getting to his feet.

"But Jack," Lucy said. "We found something that wasn't burnt; a paper..."

"Leave it!" Jack said sharply. "We have to get away from this place! Something is here."

"What?" Jason asked. "You said yourself, there are no living things in this place; if there was, we could sense it."

Jack looked him dead in the eye, and said without a hint of a smile, "I don't think it is alive."

Jason looked at his brother for a second, then asked again. "What happened to you?"

Jack took a deep breath. "It was like that time when we were running from the Predator; I dreamed I was on her ship, and I heard everything she said, and it turned out to be true."

Jason nodded; Jack had told him all about afterwards. Lucy however, wasn't so well-informed; she regarded Jack with a look of shock.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say it was like a dream?"

Jack and Jason both looked at her, and Jack nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Why?"

Lucy gave what amounted to a shrug. "Well, it's just that sounds a little like my species' ability to predict natural disasters."

"Except," added Jason, "I don't think that a fire counts as a natural disaster; and unless we conclude that the Predator was a force of nature, neither did she."

"Wait a minute," Jack said. "You said you found a paper that wasn't burnt."

"Yes," Jason replied. "But it doesn't make much sense to me. Here, see for yourself."

Jason handed him the paper, and Jack looked it over; there were a lot of words he didn't know, and what he could read was always referring to the unknown words. As far as he could gather, the point of this building was to invent new technology and then to ship it out to other places to be manufactured; most of the paper was about how much money they'd made in the last year.

It wasn't too interesting in and of itself, but it revealed that this was a laboratory; Jack didn't know what the scientists that worked here had invented, but he bet it had something to do with the fire, and his vision.

"We need to get out of here," Jack repeated, in a tone that left no room for question. "Now."

Lucy and Jason knew better than to argue with Jack when he used that tone of voice, so they quietly lined up and headed for the exit. They only made it halfway across the room.

Jack's aura-vision picked it up just in time, and he pushed Lucy out of the way a split second before a blast the electricity blackened the floor where she'd been standing. Jack turned around just in time for a triple blast of fire, ice, and electricity to hit him square in the chest.

Jack was flung backwards by the blast, but he performed a quick backflip and landed on his feet; he then immediately had to leap to one side, to avoid another blast of electricity. Keeping low to the ground, he looked quickly around the room; it didn't take him long to spot his assailant. It looked vaguely bird-like in shape, but it looked like no bird Jack had ever seen.

As it was, Jack couldn't get a clear view of the attacker; it was flying around the enclosed space of the room like a streak of light, firing blasts of electricity at Lucy, Jason, and himself at random intervals. So, instead of trying to see it, he opened his mind and tried to read it.

He gave up after only a few seconds; whatever this thing was, he couldn't detect any trace of its mind. He wasn't just being blocked, it was like there was nothing there to sense. Same with aura-vision; he could see the thing's physical outline, but only because it was a black hole in the ambient aura floating around in the air.

Whatever this thing was it had no mind, no aura, and it used electrical attacks; Jack dodged to the right to avoid another blast, then he took a shot of his own. A cyclone of leaves and grass flew in from the open doorway, and scored a direct hit on the... whatever it was.

Before it could recover, Jack, Jason, and Lucy raced for the door of the laboratory; they had almost made it, when a wall of fire erupted in front of them, blocking their escape.

Jack turned, and let out an involuntary gasp as he saw two headlight-like eyes staring back at him through the smoke. There was no doubt about it, this thing was what had set the laboratory on fire the first time, and now history was about to repeat. But not if Jack had anything to say about it.

Without thinking, Jack grabbed hold of Lucy and Jason and took a step forward; he didn't know how he did it, but he did. He caught a glimpse of a night sky full of stars, then he and his two passengers were on the hill just outside of the laboratory. Lucy and Jason looked at him in shock, but Jack knew they only had a few moments before that thing came after them.

"We'll figure it out later," he said. "For now, let's take that thing down."

Jack noticed that the rest of his team was nowhere to be seen; he hoped nothing had happened to them, but he supposed that Solomon would've called telepathically him if anything had happened.

They waited for a full twenty seconds, then a scrambled, stuttering, computerized voice came from the open doorway of the lab.

"Downl-l-l-load complet-t-te; t-t-target lock-ck-cked. D-d-d-destroy!"

A split second later a roaring beam of energy, that Jack recognized as a Hyper Beam, shot from the doorway. Jack threw up a hasty auric shield, but the blast punched through it like tissue paper; Jack took the hit, and flew backwards into a rock. He got slowly to his feet, and saw Lucy and Jason engaging the attacker with a vengeance; for some reason, every time it got an opening, it tried to attack Jack. Fortunately, Lucy and Jason it it pretty well distracted.

Even looking at it in broad daylight, Jack had no idea what the thing was; it had a round blue and red body, blue oval shaped wings and tail, and a red head with a blue bill. But neither its wings, tail, or even its head, were actually attached to its body.

In a flash of inspiration, Jack pulled out his Pokédex; he'd learned how to use it a while ago. He pointed the camera at the thing, and waited for its response. It came almost immediately.

Match found: Porygon-Z.

Species: Virtual.

Description: Its programming was modified to enable work in alien dimensions. It did not work as planned.

More information.

Out of curiosity, and hoping to find a weakness, Jack pressed the 'more information' button; he was not disappointed. Not only did his Pokédex scan Porygon-Z's type, but also its stats, moves, and even its pre-evolutions. But by far the most important thing Jack learned was why he couldn't sense Porygon-Z's mind or aura.

"It's a machine!" he said incredulously.

Jack shook his head to clear it; fight now, be astounded later he told himself. Putting away his Pokédex, he quickly telepathed orders to Lucy and Jason.

"It's a Normal-type so, Jason, hit it with Aura Sphere; Lucy, look for weak points, like in between its body and head, and hit them with everything you've got. It knows Hyper Beam, Zap Cannon, and something called Tri-Attack; it can also use Lock-On, so watch out."

"And what will you be doing while we do all the hard stuff, o fearless leader?" Jason telepathed back sarcastically.

"I'll be the distraction," Jack said with a grin.

"Oh; carry on then."

Lucy and Jason backed off a little from Porygon-Z and, sure enough, it fired a Zap Cannon at Jack; Jack used Extremespeed to dodge it, and then he darted in with Mach Punch, scoring a solid hit on its head. Porygon-Z flew backwards, and straight into Jason's Aura Sphere; a heartbeat later, Lucy slammed into it with Slash, dealing even more damage.

Porygon-Z recovered, and fired a Hyper Beam at Jack; he dodged it easily, and responded with a blast of Psychic. Jason then followed up with another Aura Sphere, and Lucy got a third hit in with Air Cutter.

However, just as Jack thought that the battle was going well, Porygon-Z played its trump card; quite simply, it disappeared. There was no trace of it left anywhere; it was just gone. Jack didn't know where it had gone, but he was willing to bet that it hadn't run away.

Then, out of nowhere, a Zap Cannon hit Jason square in the back; he fell to the ground, completely paralysed from the attack. Just as Jack and Lucy turned around to help the Lucario another Zap Cannon hit Lucy, paralysing her as well. Jack looked around desperately, but there was still no sign of Porygon-Z.

Then, the hairs on the back of Jack's neck stood straight up; without thinking, he flung himself to the left just as a Zap Cannon shot by him. He instinctively turned and fired a blast of Psychic in the direction from which the attack came, but there was nothing there.

A second later, Jack launched himself straight up as a Hyper Beam shot underneath him; this time, from his Pidgy's eye view, he spotted a flicker of movement. Just a faint ripple in the air, like a heat haze; it only lasted for a split second, but Jack was positive that it had something to do with Porygon-Z's disappearing act.

He floated in mid-air, watching the battlefield intently; he saw Jason and Lucy were still paralysed, but he couldn't focus on that now. He had a plan, but it required split second timing; not to mention a good deal of luck.

He waited until the hairs on his neck were pricked up, and every instinct he possessed told him to move; when he was absolutely certain that Porygon-Z was right behind him, he simultaneously ducked, and grabbed at the air behind him. If his plan worked, air wouldn't be the only thing he grabbed.

He felt the sizzle of a Zap Cannon whizzing past his ear, then he felt a cold, smooth, round surface, and he latched on to it for dear life.

A split second later, he was nowhere; it felt like he has been plunged into cold water, but he could breathe normally. All he could see around him was endless black depth, dotted with a million stars; there was no ground and he was floating, which added to the illusion of being underwater.

This place was completely alien, but at the same time, Jack felt like he'd been here before. It felt familiar; comforting, even. It felt peaceful and quiet, like he could stay here forever and never grow old or die. But there was one thing that spoiled that image; he was still holding onto Porygon-Z.

The Virtual Pokémon released a few hundred volts of electricity into Jack's arm; the zap didn't hurt Jack for some reason, but it did make him involuntarily let go. The second he did, Porygon-Z disappeared back to the physical world, leaving Jack trapped.

At first, Jack didn't even mind; it didn't just feel peaceful here, he felt a power like he'd never felt before. It was as if every muscle in his body had been supercharged; he felt like he'd been injected with a mixture of caffeine, sugar, and adrenaline. He felt alive than he'd ever felt before, and he didn't want to leave; but he knew his friends would even now be at the mercy of Porygon-Z. And he didn't think machines had mercy.

Without thinking about how he did it, he pushed himself back into the physical world; as he did so, effortlessly and automatically, he realized what that place was and when he'd been there before. With great difficulty, he pushed that from his mind; he couldn't afford to get distracted.

He popped into existence right behind Porygon-Z, and grabbed onto it again; before its electronic brain could register his return, Jack pulled them both back into the place 'between'. Once there, he unleashed a point blank Force Palm, and poured every last scrap of power he had into it.

Normally, expending that much energy on a single attack would've almost knocked him out; but in the Between, as he chose to call it, his energy regenerated almost as fast as he could use it up. After a few seconds in the Between, he was right as rain again, and ready to take them both back to the real world.

Jack's Force Palm had left Porygon-Z dazed and, once they arrived back in reality, it flew in lazy circle in the air.

"Error; er-r-r-ror; does not-t-t comput-t-te," it said in its stuttering computer voice.

Jack smiled ruefully. "If that translates to, 'it's impossible', then yeah; I guess it is. But by this point, I've learned to live with the impossible."

Now that his opponent was helpless, Jack found that he wasn't actually angry with it; he knew it had probably killed countless people, and would've killed his friends too if given the chance, but he also knew that it was the result of faulty programming. He couldn't blame a machine for doing what it was designed to do.

"W-w-weapon systems-s-s off-off-off-line. O-o-objective: d-d-destroy. Initiate s-s-self destruct sequ-qu-qu-quence. 5. 4."

Jack's eyes widened, and he did the first thing that popped into his head; he grabbed hold of Porygon-Z again, and Teleported straight up. He didn't know how far up he went, all he knew was he couldn't let it blow up at ground level; even if he got Jason and Lucy away in time, he had no way of knowing whether the rest of his team was inside the blast radius.

"3."

He popped into reality high above the ground, but it wasn't high enough; there was still a chance that his friends might get hit by shrapnel. With three seconds left, he prepared to throw Porygon-Z as far away as possible, but he didn't get the chance.

With a fireball that made the sun look like a flashlight, Porygon-Z exploded in Jack's hand. Jack had no warning, no time to do anything, and no way to protect his friends. In his last moment of consciousness, that last fact hurt more than the explosion. As he plummeted to the ground, the last thing he saw was fire.

Me: Well guys, that's the promised chapter; I hope you enjoyed...

Jack: WAIT JUST A COTTON PICKIN' MINUTE! While I still live and breathe, you are not ending the chapter like that again! Give me that keyboard...

Me: Hey! Give that back!

Jack: Go soak your head. Now then, folks, here's the rest of the chapter; written by yours truly.

When Jack woke up, he was lying on the ground; not that surprising, considering the fall he just had...

That thought made Jack sit up straight; he'd been blasted out of the sky, so how was he still alive?! More than that, how wasn't he at least crippled in agony? He must have at least broken some bones, or something. Sitting up brought out aches and pain all over his body, and a faint throbbing in the back of his head, but it should have been a lot worse. When he looked down at his body however, he saw that his trainer clothes had been reduced to charred rags; his body itself was bruised, cut, and burned all over, but not broken.

He looked around, and almost jumped out of his skin; hovering at eye-level to him, was Porygon-Z!

"It's alright, human," it said. "I am not Porygon-Z; I am a Porygon2. You need not be afraid."

As Jack calmed down and took a closer look at the creature, he saw that it was telling the truth; it was slightly smaller than Porygon-Z, and it didn't have the same insane, spotlight-like eyes. And its voice, while still electronic sounding, was steady and smooth.

"Alright," Jack said, "But what happened? Why are you here?"

Porygon2 looked at him for a second. "The questions are one and the same; I am here because of what happened. And what happened, was you destroyed Porygon-Z."

Jack eyed Porygon2 suspiciously. "You're not here for revenge, are you?"

Porygon2 gave an electronic laugh. "No, I assure you I am not; I think that in order for you to understand, I had best start from the beginning. You see, long long ago, there was a group of scientists who were obsessed with creating artificial life; they began by creating a machine that could think for itself. They called this machine Porygon; it was the first artificial Pokémon ever created. It was still only a rough design, but the scientists experimented on it, and eventually came out with a new version; they called it Porygon2. It could do many things that the first Porygon could not, and it could even replicate human emotions. It was still a machine at heart, but the scientists were happy with it. But years afterwards, a different group of scientists decided that they could improve on even Porygon2's design; but they knew that to do so, they would have to break several laws. So they built a laboratory out here, and conducted their experiments in secret. Eventually, they found what they were looking for; they made a new version, which they called Porygon-Z, and it was in every way superior to the older versions. However the endless experimentation, and the new programming which the scientists installed, drove Porygon-Z completely insane. It destroyed the scientists, and kept all the other Porygons captive in the laboratory; it was far more powerful than all of us combined."

"Wait a minute," Jack interrupted. "You mean there's more of you?"

"Yes," Porygon2 said. "They are tending to your friends now; don't interrupt. Now then; we Porygon shut ourselves down to conserve power, in the hopes of outlasting Porygon-Z, who constantly patrolled the lab. We waited and waited, but Porygon-Z didn't show any signs of losing power. We had almost lost hope, when a boy, a Lucario, and an Absol stumbled into the lab. We tried to warn the boy about Porygon-Z, but we were too late..."

"That was you?" Jack interrupted again.

Porygon2 sighed. "Yes, it was us; we used one of the other inventions scattered around the lab, a device used to send telepathic messages. Don't interrupt."

Jack shut his mouth with a snap.

"We thought Porygon-Z would destroy the boy, but the boy proved to be far more powerful than Porygon-Z. The boy showed mercy and did not kill Porygon-Z, but Porygon-Z activated its self destruct mechanism, and the boy bravely sacrificed himself to save his friends. We could not let such kindness and loyalty be rewarded with death, so we caught the boy before he could fall to earth, and we healed him to the best of our abilities. And I stood watch over him until he awoke, as the others went to see that the boy's friends were alright. Is everything clear to you now?"

Jack sat and thought for a moment, and then nodded.

"Good; then I shall take you to your friends."

Jack got up and followed Porygon2 back to the entrance of the lab, where he saw at least a dozen Porygon and Porygon2 flying around as if they hadn't seen the sun in years; which they might not have. His entire team was assembled in the middle of the valley, and were looking at the flying Virtual Pokémon as if they'd materialized out of nowhere; which they also might have.

Upon seeing Jack walking towards them, looking as though he'd been through a meat shredder, they rushed over in a mob to make sure he was alright. After he'd assured each of them individually that he was okay, they settled down, and Porygon2 told his story again.

"So, what are you all going to do now?" Jack asked Porygon2 after it finished.

Porygon2 considered the question. "I suppose that depends; most of us will go our own way, although some of us will probably stay together."

"But," Jack asked, "What will you do?"

Porygon2 hovered uncertainly, then seemed to make up its mind. "I want to go with you; I wish to learn more about being alive, and I've never seen anything more full of life than you and your friends."

Jack smiled. "Alright, I'd love to have you along; but if you're going to come with me, you'll have to call me by my name. Jack Storm."

"Jack Storm," Porygon2 repeated. "That is a good name."

"Do you have a name?" Jack asked.

The Virtual Pokémon looked Jack in the eye. "No; I do not."

"Do you want me to give you one?"

"Yes."

Jack thought about it for a moment. "How about Thomas?"

"Thomas," he said to himself. "That is a good name; thank you, Jack Storm."

"You're welcome," Jack replied. "Welcome to the family, Thomas."

Jack: And that is, in my opinion, a much more satisfactory ending.

Me: Great; I'm glad you're happy. Now give me back the keyboard.

Jack: Actually, I think I'll write the next chapter for you; after all, you look kinda tired.

Me: I am not tired; give me that...

Jack: I don't think so; and if you try anything funny, I'll... *Whispers*

Me: You wouldn't dare!

Jack: Try me.

Me: *Grumbles*

Jack: Well folks, that's the chapter; if you're looking for another great story to read, I suggest checking out PkmnMaster Rolf's 200 Things NOT to do in Pokémon. It's more fun than a barrel of Mankeys; not that a barrel of Mankeys would be much fun, but oh well. See you in the next chapter.