Chapter 15 – Rewritten

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"Well, I'm glad that's over and down with" the Meowstick let out a sigh as she brushed herself down, she had beaten her brother with very little struggle from her end, despite all the talking he did. Amelia almost felt sorry for him. Nonetheless, after leaving his unconscious body in a dignified position, she pressed on down the beaten path to her destination, only she had one problem. Amelia had no idea where she was going, the woodland was beginning to become identical around her and the distant booms and crashing sounds of the battles around her made her nervous to walk down the path. So, she did what anyone would do to pass the time and calm their nerves, talk aloud to themselves "I wonder who's left? Could be anyone just wandering around here."

Amelia's loud thinking was interrupted by her phone going off, after retrieving it from her bag she learned that she had a few texts from her friends; one from Chloe and a photo from George. Amelia opened the message from Chloe first and read it aloud "omg just floored Nathan with George, lol. Took all his badges and left him by a tree. Laughing face laughing face laughing face." Amelia shook her head with a smile, another hot head had been put in his place. Thinking back on her victory, she remembered the events in perfect detail given that they had just happened. The way she perfectly immobilised Rob mid-air, only for him to break free of her hold and dive for her in a fatal lunging attack. Well, what would have been a fatal lunging attack had Amelia not slid around him and let his own momentum carry him till he collided headfirst with a tree. She was immediately by his side to ensure that he wasn't badly hurt.

Once she could confidently confirm that he had just knocked himself out, Amelia let herself laugh off the fight and continue on her way, "I still can't believe he did that … anyways what has George sent me?"

When she entered the chat it turned out he had sent two pictures; the first was a selfie of himself, James, and a boy with black hair, the description underneath the image read 'this is Gabriel. He's new to town so I've been showing him around.' Amelia rolled her eyes at the turn of events (he organised this whole event, and then he suddenly runs off to show a new person around town. What an idiot.) She scrolled down to examine the next photo, it was a picture of a Frogadier unconsciously leaning against a tree, and she assumed this was Nathan. His face had been scribbled over with a marker. Glasses across his eyes, droll down his chin the whole works, whoever's masterpiece this was undoubtedly wanted to share it with the world. 'We got all the marker off before we left. It'd be better for everyone involved if nobody else found out about this.' Amelia laughed at the picture for a while as she continued walking, she turned the screen off to calm down, then turned it back on to laugh at it some more. It was a wild ride with her, and she planned to ride it all the way to the finish line.

Meanwhile, on the other end of town

In the busy streets of Gilissor, George and Gabriel waved and weaved their way through a few bustling crowds, while the Chesnaught showed him the sights, Gabriel found that his feelings of alienation had begun to subside dramatically. "Is it always this busy?" Gabriel asked as the trio emerged from the last crowd.

George looked back over his shoulder, the crowds were never this big, even during the busiest seasons "must be something big if that many people are bustling through the streets? You hear about any big events?" He looked over his shoulder at the crowd and just shrugged, "no clue."

"Well, at least that was the last of them. I hope" Gabriel chuckled nervously, hoping his words wouldn't come back to bite him in the back, "hey, what's that shop over there?" He point at a shop that was plastered with pink decorations and fluffy cloud shaped signs.

"Huh? Oh, that one's new. Think it sells baked goods specifically for pokèmon." George rubbed his chin while glancing between the store and James, who was paying him no mind 'wonder if he'd want something from there … maybe I'll get it for him as a surprise.' While he was caught up in his thoughts, George felt someone push past him with a lot of force. He felt his whole body turn to the right as a Sceptile passed him, he broke away from his thoughts with a startled reaction "huh-" the first thing that caught his attention was the large brown coat that the Sceptile was wearing atop it's body, though he didn't have long to process it.

"Hey, watch it" George turned to face the passer-by that had just pushed past. The Sceptile while he perched himself back on George's shoulder, the Sceptile had stopped once it heard James yell at it. The pokèmon turned to show its face, it looked calmly at the trio, though its gaze seemed mainly focused on the Chesnaught, "are you a pokenoid? I haven't seen you around town before."

"Yes, I am new in these parts, but I'm only here on business" the Sceptile revealed a box from inside its coat "I would like to ask if either of you know anyone at this address or could point me in the general direction."

George raised a brow; no, he didn't know. George was going to ask Gabriel if he knew, but as he looked over at the boy, he saw that his new friend was staring at the box intently. His face was filled with concern, "who is the box addressed to and what's inside it?" Gabriel asked, both curiously and cautiously.

"Unfortunately, I am in no position to disclose the contents of the delivery. But I can say that the intended recipient of this package is one Mr … Collinson." The messenger read off the surname on the label and Gabriel's unease turned to a serious focus. "Do you know this address?"

"Is everything alright?" The chesnaught laid a hand on Gabriel's shoulder gently, this broke him out of whatever thoughts he was having as their eyes locked, and George saw an undoubtable feeling of fear in his eyes, "you can tell me, it's okay."

Gabriel took a deep breath and nodded slowly, letting his gaze fall back onto the box "I know I just moved in recently, but I've had long enough to study the address … and it's mine." He nodded before extending a hand towards the Sceptile "I'll save you the trip, I can take it home with me."

There was a pause between the group, but the Sceptile made no movements to hand the box over but shook his head calmly "I can only apologise, but I have been given specific sending orders to deliver this to the address specified. I cannot hand it over to anyone but the intended recipient."

"But I live there" Gabriel extended his hands towards the box, emphasising that the messenger should hand the box over "I can deliver it myself."

The messenger shook his head again and tucked the box back into his coat "I'm afraid I cannot do that. Forgive my mistrust, but I cannot confirm if you truly are the resident of this address." There was a pause as Gabriel reluctantly let his hands drop, he did not look pleased; the Sceptile placed a hand in one of the pockets on his coat and pulled out a phone and nodded to himself quickly before looking over at the group. "My apologies, but it is my duty to see that this package is delivered without fail. Now if you will excuse me, I hope you have a good day."

The Sceptile turned away and continued down the path, before stopping to check his phone again before looking over his shoulder and locking eyes with the Chesnaught, George felt a chill run down his spine, and his shoulders shifted uncomfortably under his shell. He looked Gabriel, who had taken to his phone to message someone "is he home? Oh, he's always home who am I kidding … maybe he's actually gone out?" Gabriel was muttering to himself worriedly and presses the phone against his ear "come on … come on …"

"…" George looked down the road again, the Sceptile was gone, and the feeling of unease was slowly seeping out of his system, he felt the muscles in his body easing as if they had just braced themselves for a punch to the gut. His attention was turned to Gabriel, and he extended his arm and placed his hand on Gabriel's shoulder reassuringly, Gabriel glanced at him and gave him a nod before a quite beep alerted him that the person he was calling had picked up.

"Patch! Hey … listen, are you out right now?" Gabriel shifted George's hand off his shoulder and paced around as he talked with whoever Patch was, "okay … okay. Listen, there's a package coming to the house … I know, so early." He looked over his shoulder at George before turning back around "hey, just do me a favour and put that aside … okay? Okay. Thank you … how are you doing?"

As Gabriel continued his call, George walked down the road a bit to give him some privacy, a few more steps closer to his original goal. Even though they had only just met, George was worried for Gabriel, (that pokenoid just now … something about him seemed so …) he shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck as he continued to think about what had happened (well, I've never seen one of those packages actually delivered before. That Sceptile, could he have delivered more of those before? Does he even know what are in those or what they've done to people-)

"Hey, what's with you?" A voice broke through his thoughts he looked around confused, he couldn't see anyone talking to him, "seriously, are you going deaf or something? Come on, I wanna talk." He looked down towards the ground, it was James.

"Oh, you're up" the chesnaught picked him up and placed him on his shoulder "you seriously couldn't just stay in your pokèball? You got knocked out cold, are you sure you should be out and about like this?"

The Eevee stared at him unimpressed before just shaking his head and sighing, "I'm tougher than I look, wasn't it me who earned you that storm badge when you were struggling to make it?" He eyed his trainer for a moment with a glint of pride in his eyes, "by the way, you can feel free to thank me for that any time now."

George sighed (what about Dewott? Doesn't get any … wait that's not the point here.) "Well, thank you." James' smug grin shifted for a moment, as if he had been caught off guard by an actual thank you, "I know we can communicate properly now, but I would appreciate if you listened to me like I'm your trainer. I would appreciate it if you stayed in your pokèball when you're hurt" James huffed and the pair were left in silence for a moment.

"Sorry about that, I'm back" Gabriel approached the pair from the side, he appeared to have calmed down, he looked between the two of them with his eyes settling on James. "Oh, you have an Eevee as a partner, that's cool."

"Actually, my first pokèmon was an Oshawott, this little guy came to me as an egg." George scratched James head, despite the latter's grumpiness and quite objections he couldn't help but enjoy it just a little, "he's gotten use to sitting on my shoulder nowadays, and he's pretty talkative too."

"Oh, so you can talk to pokèmon? That's cool" Gabriel smiled at George, "can he understand me?" James nodded, while trying to look cool after the head scratching "ha, not bad little guy."

"That's James to you." The Eevee scoffed, offended by the use of little guy by somebody he didn't know, "… tell him I said that."

"Oh, right. His name is James by the way." George explained, Gabriel started to ask why but the chesnaught stopped him, "he named himself, I had nothing to do with it. Actually, why did you call yourself James?"

The Eevee took a moment to think of his response "hmm, I … actually don't know" he shrugged, "it just sort of came to me … guess I just kinda liked the name."

"Kind of liked it? What sort of answer is that?" George rolled his eyes before looking at Gabriel and shaking his head, Gabriel shook his head as well, and then paused.

"Uh, well excuse me, you put me on the spot, and hey I don't hear any complaints coming from you" James braked back. George waved his hand in James face, the Eevee's face scrunched up momentarily before opening his mouth, baring his canines as they caught the sunlight and hovered above the Chesnaughts hand.

Meanwhile

A flock of bird pokèmon soared above Amelia's head and she watched their formation falter and realign as if they were fleeing from something, "hmm … eh, not my problem" with a casual smile Amelia emerged from the woodland and hurried into the busy town streets. "Any smart gal would use the crowds to her advantage, I'll just slip on in and stroll my way to victory, I won't even have to win another match." Amelia praised herself as she approached the bustling street corner, "okay, here goes."

Amelia dashed into the crowd without hesitation and weaved her way around and even through the people's legs with ease, at first. But avoiding the careless steps of oblivious passers-by soon became a challenge as the crowd's density increased, and her free-flowing movements began to feel a lot more constricted, "hey, watch it, Meowstick coming through. Make way, I've got somewhere to be." Amelia did her best to alert the crowd around her but being as small as she was proved too troublesome; she would have to part with this crowd in order to survive which would leave her open to an attack. But the only person that would attack her in the town was bested by her about 2 hours ago, with that in mind she decided to take her chances outside of the crowd.

She emerged from the horde and breathed in deeply, preparing for the worst before fully breaking away from the crowd, "not a Hawlucha, or Charizard, or Gengar in sight … we're good." With full confidence, she strolled down the road towards the park, "now that I've got this moment of peace, maybe I should do a little strategizing. I already know that Rob and Nathan aren't going to the next round, but that still leaves quite a few other competitors. George is another fighting type so if I were to go up against him, I would have an advantage but then again he has a few tricks up his sleeve, that pin missile move will make things tricky."

Amelia continued running down the possible outcomes; Patrick and Chloe are both fire types so there's no real advantage to be had there but then there was Tom, because of type matchups she would be at a disadvantage. Not to mention his ability to phase through objects would make tracking him a hassle, "I'd had to be as vigilant as possible if I were to beat him. Heh, I just realised how seriously I'm taking this." She stopped and looked around her, the rush hour seemed to be dying down and her presence had been made known to the people, she did her best to ignore the glances some threw her way. Amelia shook them off and continued walking "I need to lighten up, come on Amelia lighten the load-"

One second, she was walking like she owned the world, the next she was stumbling backwards and with a resounding thud she hit the floor, "hey watch where your going, a short gal like yourself ought to be careful" the first thing that caught Amelia's attention was the pink hair that leaked out from under a beanie the girl had pulled down over her head.

The Meowstick stared at her silently for a moment before picking herself up, "sorry, I got wrapped up in some important … I got lost in my thoughts" Amelia reworded her sentence, as judging from the girl's appearance she didn't seem to have a lot going on upstairs; her outfit looked simple with just a red and black striped shirt and grey jeans. From prior experience, Amelia guessed that this girl had made her outfit and look to draw attention to her face; at least that's what she garnered from a glance. "Are you new to town? A gym challenger?"

"Woah, hey. Don't go jumping to conclusion" the girl waved a hand and circled slowly around Amelia, "I have my own reasons for being here … but I'm just passing through right now." She looked over her shoulder and shone a smile at the Meowstick, this cheeky attitude shook Amelia's idea of who this girl was, "so, what're you thinking about?"

The Meowstick blinked, "oh, I uh. Don't worry about it, just something I'm in the middle of" the pokenoid took a few steps forward but turned around and looked over at the girl again. Something … stirred in her. "You're awfully calm about meeting a talking pokèmon."

"Ah, the news has covered you guys from back to front, sure there was a moment of shock like 'oh my god, it talked' but you know what? I'm not one to judge, so you do you." The girl held that cheery smile as she turned around and held her hands behind her back as she began to walk away.

"Wait" Amelia stopped the new mysterious girl, who looked over her shoulder rather than turn to face her, she needed to speak fast, "can I get your name? I'm Amelia."

The girl looked away, hiding her face as her hands loosened and slid around to her front, she left Amelia in silence as huddles of individuals passed around them. The girl then looked over her shoulder again, smiling once more "Sympthya. I'll see you around, Amelia." With that, the girl took off and the Meowstick watched her back until she was gone; but that odd feeling didn't leave her, no it lingered and hung in the air around her. 'I don't understand. Why do I feel so …' she shook her shoulders and turned around 'I need to get going, I'll just try to walk it off'. With a deep breath she finally began walking down the road towards the park, there was still a way to go but she was confident she would make it.

…

Hours passed as the new girl walked through the streets, smiling politely at the people who crossed her path, however she seemed to be wary of every corner she crossed as if she was trying to avoid something. After a final corner she stopped in the open mouth of an alleyway between two large buildings, she checked her surroundings before stepping into the shade of the alley "so, did you give it to the right house, this time?" Sympthya asked the darkness moodily.

"I assure you; his orders have been followed to the letter." A shape moved in the shadows before stepping forward and defining itself, "what about yourself? Have you surveyed the area like asked, found potential candidates?"

Sympthya smiled proudly and leaned against one of the buildings, "ah it was easy work, they're practically everywhere. But are we ever gonna move away from teen and kids? Cuz I saw one or two snarky adults who could use a good muk-ification." The figure sighed and sank back into obscurity, venturing down the road, "oh, don't be like that. At least we didn't run into many bumps."

"Many bumps?" The figure turned around and faced Sympthya again, she felt a chill run down her spine but did her best to play it off, "are you implying that you came into contact with one of the subjects?"

The girl laughed, waving off the other persons concerns, "nah, what do you take me for?" She asked jokingly, the person standing opposite her remained silent, "don't actually answer that." She asked them seriously then sighed and shook her head, "okay fine, I ran into the Meowstick. She caught me by surprise, but I got out of there in less than a minute, seriously, no worries." The figure leapt at Sympthya without hesitation raising a hand towards her throat, but Sympthya dipped a hand into her pocket and thrust it out towards the other person. A sudden flash cast shadows across the alley, a magenta light emanated from the baton Sympthya had produced from her pocket, which she had rested softly against the other person's stomach. The figures hands were milometers from her throat. "Careful now Kusa, you wouldn't want to cause a scene now, would you?"

The person in question backed away, adjusting his coat angrily before taking in a deep breath and turning around, "you're right. We must uphold a covert status." He walked further into the alley and looked upward, towards the sky visible between the buildings, his eyes then landing on a fire escape further towards the end of the alleyway "that will do nicely." The Sceptile lowered himself to the ground then leapt to the right wall of the alley, he clung to the wall for a moment before lunging at the left wall. Kusa propelled himself off of the left back onto the right and using his clawed feet and right hand, he ran across the wall with his left hand out to grab the ladder; Sympthya shook her head as she strolled towards the fire escape as the ladder land on the ground with a rattling thud 'show off'.

"So, what now? Our pick-up at the rendezvous won't be here for another 3 hours" Sympthya asked as she climbed the fire escape, stopping on the platforms outside the windows to look inside curiously, or hide from anyone inside.

Kusa climbing further up the railings from the outside, moving stealthily between the levels of the fire escape, "I suppose we have this moment to ourselves. I shall continue with the observation, avoid coming into contact with them a …" he paused, looking down at Sympthya who was looking up at him smugly. He sighed, "perhaps I did come into contact with one of the subjects."

Sympthya continued up the fire escape as she began to prod Kusa for answers, "ooo, now you gotta tell me who it was. Was it the Frogadier? Oh wait, no was it that Gengar? Come on, stop me anytime now." She cut her attention between remaining unnoticed and trying to get answers out of her partner.

"It was the Chesnaught, he and one of the new candidates appear to have crossed paths when I discovered them." Kusa place a firm hand against the ledge of the rooftop and hoisted himself onto the rooftop. The Sceptile looked over the city from the rooftop, observing the streets below and peering further over the side before retreating to the middle of the roof and resting on an air duct while he waited.

"Oh, news boy? Man, you basically met a celebrity. Was he just as polite as he was in the report?" Sympthya asked, still rubbing Kusa's careless accident in his face further. The Sceptile glanced at her for a moment then pushed his hand into his pocket and bringing out a phone, "you're really gonna do more research, we've been at this for hours now, what else is there to research, and don't just use 'potential candidates' as an excuse."

The Sceptile stared at the screen blankly, blinking occasionally as he tried to come up with a lie to cover for the continued research, "…" he sighed and looked over at Sympthya, "this research is dire. We must perfect it to-"

"To blah blah blah, I don't care." Sympthya groaned angrily before kicking the air in front of her, "can we at least pick a different town? Jeez, I'm tired of seeing the same streets plus like everyone knows about these guys, can't we expand our horizons a little?"

"You know how set he is in his ways, not to mention that he does not trust that the second wave of catalysts are stable enough to work independently. Surely you understand his caution around this delicate matter." Kusa spoke in great lengths about the responsibilities that hung above their heads, Sympthya simply stood their bored stiff, "that is why we have-"

"Have decided to expand our field of candidates from the original roster but still remain within the boarders of the test field. Yeah, yeah I've heard it a dozen times." Sympthya sighed moodily while sitting down on the spot, resting her head in her hands as she stared gloomily across the town, "seriously, can't we go do something else?" Kusa ignored her, tapping the screen a few times before adding more info to a profile, the girl scoffed and picked a stone up off of the ground and cast it over the side of the rooftop. There was a moment of silence but soon enough there was a satisfying clatter and clang that followed and Sympthya glanced over at the Sceptile, who had looked up from his device to look at her disappointedly. "You still owe me ice-cream by the way."

"I already bought you ice-cream when we arrived" Kusa objected calmly as his hand hovered momentarily over the pocket, he had stashed his wallet in.

Sympthya claimed otherwise with confidence, "nope. That one was for a different time, this one is for the most recent one, you know what I mean." She smiled at him slyly, and Kusa broke away, looking across town at something else; he felt a ball of regret as she once again hung that event over his head "you're in high moods, especially after something like that?"

There was a moment of silence, Kusa stared out at the setting sun and scanned the skyline as he tried to identify every colour in the phases of the sky. He stared at the clouds which dotted the canvas like horizon, which was only dirtied by the skyscrapers of another town. "So, how about you get me mint this time? Yeah?"

Kusa sighed, "of all the people to be here with …" he wondered why she had to be his partner, of all the people that worked with him. "Allow me to document at least one more candidate. This next phase of the plan must be dealt with cautiously."