1
...
The room was silent.
The darkness occupied the stillness of the near empty room. The kind of pitch black you'd naturally expect from someplace left untouched for an indefinite amount of time. Quiet thrived in the chilling space. At least, only for a little while. Breaking the silence was the clanging and banging of a metal vent cover in the corner. Soon, quiet was dead and two whispering voices took its place.
"Ow!" yelped a timid voice.
"You're not hitting hard enough!" a slightly lower voice rebuked.
"It's harder than it looks!"
"All right, all right, scoot back a bit."
One swift kick was all it took to release the vent cover's hold on the wall.
First to slide out was a Raichu.
He could easily be mistaken for any ordinary Raichu if it weren't for the fact that he was missing his tail, his cheeks were covered in bandages and part of his right ear was torn as though someone had tugged on it. He donned a frayed worn out sleeve of leather like a jacket. On the left of his jacket, attached a small rusted piece of metal splotched with yellow paint and the word "RAD" in black lettering.
"See anything, Rad?" the softer voice called out from the vent.
"Yep... I see dark, Barry," said Rad the Raichu. "And lots of it."
Barry was the next in line to tumble into the room, along with a stout flashlight and a burlap sack.
He's a Togedemaru who wore a brimless hat made of foil and spectacles crudely fashioned out of a paperclip, tape and recycled glass.
"Wow, you weren't kidding," says Barry as he flipped on the flashlight.
"Of course I wasn't kidding! Why would I kid about something like this?" Rad took the light from his accomplice.
"Well, when you told me you discovered an abandoned Pokémon Center filled with intact equipment, underground of all places, I found it hard to believe you."
Rad smirked. "Have I ever steered you wrong?"
"Uh…"
"Don't answer that."
Rad shone his light throughout the room and as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the duo took mental notes of their surroundings. Towers of inactive computers and equipment lined the walls and several tables and office chairs lay scattered in the center area.
The Pokémon explored their newfound discoveries from corner to corner. Dusty cobwebs, discarded sheets of paper and the occasional potted plant were all upturned and scrutinized in the search for precious loot. The dead computers hid their delicate components within steel casings that resisted whatever form of violence Rad could muster with his paws. This sort of protection of sophisticated technology made the mysterious empty laboratory more unsettling. After failing to find anything useful or valuable, Rad and Barry continued their search down a hall that led to another unlit space.
"Are you sure about this?" Barry asked.
"Eh, probably," Rad shrugged. "We're bound to bump into something sooner or later. I got a quota to fill, remember?"
Barry replied with a trembling nod. It wasn't his first time spelunking with Rad, but this particular venture presented a wafting air of unease. Suddenly, he heard a faint rustling coming from the other side of the room, causing the Togedemaru to quiver as his ears perk up.
"D-did you hear that?"
Rad flexed his good ear in an attempt to register a sound. "I didn't hear anything."
Barry walked backward while searching for the source of the noise only to bump his head on a limp object dangling from above.
"Ahh! Rad!" he shrieked, sprinting behind the Raichu. "We're not alone!"
Rad used his light to reveal the object: the sleeve of a white lab coat draped over a chair.
"It's just a coat, Barry."
Rad illuminated the remainder of their environment. Upon further inspection, the new room they were in looked exceptionally ravaged. The tiled floor was littered with paper and writing implements, swivel chairs were knocked over and even some of the bulky computer cases had impressive dents imbedded into them. Barry shivered in fright. His suspicions of the two not being alone may soon prove to be true, but the threat of potential hostilites failed to impede Rad's stuff hunting mission.
"Well, whoever was here didn't bother to tidy up," said Rad.
"Oh, dear," Barry whimpered. "Do you know what this means?"
"Yeah! There's more stuff to loot!"
"No Rad! This definitely isn't some random Pokémon Center! No one leaves a great big mess in a place like this! Something must've gone wrong. It looks like they left in a hurry."
"Maybe they were just lazy, Barry. These are humans we're talking about."
The Togedemaru walked up to a broken computer screen and examined the damage. The scattered shards of glass made the area difficult to walk through.
"I think we may have stumbled into some sort of research laboratory," Barry noted. "But what is a research lab doing underground? What's more, all this technology looks really sophisticated. Why would they leave it all behind like this?"
"Wrecked research lab, abandoned Pokémon Center, so what? All that matters is that we get our paws on some useful junk and bring it back to the Lair," Rad lifted a lab coat sleeve with a nearby pen. "Yeesh. If I was stuck down here, I'd probably leave too."
The Raichu's eyes glance up to the wide desk in the center of the room. He held the flashlight in his mouth and climbed the toppled chairs to reach the desk's contents.
"W-where are you going?!" Barry squeaked.
"Just stay put while I look around," Rad ordered.
He sifted through the paper and folders littered across the work space until he came across a page with printed black and white pictures. The photos showed several Raichu mugshots, each labeled a different number.
"Well, that's ominous," Rad commented.
Meanwhile, Barry sat as still as he could, waiting for his friend to return. In the distance, a skittering sound, like the tapping of nails, caused him to jump.
"Was that you, Rad?" he shivered.
"Hey, Barry!"
"Ack! What?!" the startled Togedemaru looked above the desk to see Rad holding a remote shaped device riddled with red and black buttons, fitted with a speaker and a short antenna.
"What is that?" Barry asked.
"This, my rotund friend, is a communicator thing-ga-ma-what-sit!" Rad raised the odd prize high above his head. "And it's still intact! We could totally take this back home, free it of its parts and fix the radio."
"A thing-ga… huh?"
"I don't know. I think they call it a 'walkie-talkie'," Rad tossed the device down to his partner. "Stick it in the bag, little buddy! We're getting paid double tonight!"
"Oh, I hope so," said Barry. His small hopeful smile was quick to change to a fearful quiver as he noticed another presence in the room.
Rad jumped down to the floor to reunite with his friend. "Finally! Let's get out of this creepy place."
"Uh… Rad?" The Togedemaru pointed at the new entity and Rad's eyes followed. "W-Who is that?!"
A few feet away from the scavenging Pokémon were two white shining eyes, devoid of pupils, staring back at them from the darkness.
"Hi there," Rad waved down the set of eyes. "Um… Sorry to burst your bubble, but we were here first, bud. We looted this junk fair and square."
The stranger shambles its way forward in slow clumsy steps into their view. The new presence revealed itself to be a Raichu, but it's silhouette was the only feature it shared with the Pokémon. Instead of fur, this Raichu donned cold gray steel skin. It had glowing bulbs of white light where eyes should be, rectangular ears and sparking exposed wires hanging out of holes in its cheeks.
Rad gawked at the artificial Pokémon. "Oh… you're... a robot?"
His sidekick's spines stood out in fear.
"Ha! My mistake," Rad chuckled as he and Barry tiptoed backwards. "You must be the automatic vacuum cleaner. Don't mind us. We were just on our way out."
But as soon as they turn around to leave, the duo were greeted to five more robotic Raichus. Their wires and eyes sparked with furious energy and as the blue electricity arced, the space around them lit up.
"Ahh!" Rad and Barry shrieked.
The silent Raichu automatons shook and twitched. The free spasms of electric sparks threatened to singe the organic Pokémon. The robots limped toward them, inching closer and closer, surrounding the intruders.
"What do we do?!" Barry trembled.
"Barry, at times like this, we need a cold and calculated plan: ... Run!"
Rad took off with their burlap bag. He plowed through the first robot and knocked it on its back. Barry followed and shortly after, the fake Raichus gave chase. Rad and his comrade fled out the room and down corridor after corridor in an attempt to lose their attackers. As the robots ran together, electricity shot across their cheeks and jumped toward the retreating Pokémon.
"What are these things?!" Barry shouted.
"No clue!" Rad called back. "Luckily for us, I have an idea!"
The Togedemaru kept his eyes forward. "It's not the one where you kick me, is it?"
Rad didn't answer. He slows his running speed so he is just behind his conveniently ball-shaped companion and whips his foot into Barry's side.
"Aiee!" The spherical Pokémon bounces off both walls of the corridor like a sporadic pinball. Yelping in pain, he ricochets off the Raichu bots and topples them over.
"I gotcha dude!" Rad leaps into the air with his paws out, catching his dizzy accomplice before they hit the ground.
"Ugh, I hate that idea," Barry grumbled.
Rad looked up to see an open door. "In here!"
They duck into the other room moments before the charging Raichus stampede past. Once the coast is clear, the fleeing Pokémon slide the door shut.
"What do we do now?! We're trapped in here!" Barry gasped, catching his breath.
"Huff… Gimme some time to think," Rad looked ahead of them and widened his eyes, spotting something in the vicinity.
"I knew coming down here was a bad idea!" the shaking Togedemaru eased away from the door.
"Barry! Check this out!"
Barry turned to his friend who was walking towards a disheveled work desk on the opposite side of the room. The dull space had its contents a little more organized than the previous room. No abnormal signs of mess or fuss. The upright swivel chair was positioned with care to obscure the view of something below. The duo noticed a dusty metal box deep underneath. The box was as tall as a Raichu and had a sizable burgundy-colored switch on the front.
Rad pointed to a label affixed to a clipboard by the side of the box that read:
"Project: D4YN4".
"What's a... 'Dayna'?" asked the Raichu.
"I think those are just letters and numbers, Rad," Barry noted.
Rad rolled his eyes and knocked on his noggin. "I know that, Barry. I can read. Help me open this thing, will ya?"
"Wait! We shouldn't be digging ourselves any deeper! These kinds of doors keep people out so they won't enter whatever danger is inside and die! Those robots probably attacked us because we were trespassing!"
"Safes have doors too," Rad placed his paws on the box's switch. "They keep people out so no one can steal the goodies inside."
"Oh, this can only end in disaster," said Barry as he pulled on his ears.
"C,mon! Open!" Rad repeatedly jerked on the switch before finally forcing it down with a reverberant slam. A few more clicks and clanks followed as the mechanisms within the box's lock tumbled into alignment. Soon, the door creaked open by itself and unveiled its contents.
Peering inside, the duo gazed upon the teal-colored metal-plated quadruped body of a Shinx robot. Unlit bulbs took place of its eyes, its ears were cubical instead of oval-shaped and a stocky antennae where its tuft of hair should be.
"Is that a Shinx?" the Raichu's explorer curiosity gets the better of him as he steps towards the caged creation.
"What are you doing?!" Barry whispered. "It's another killer robot!"
Much to the Togedemaru's dismay, Rad leans in closer and waves his paw in front of the motionless Pokémon automaton. No immediate sign of movement was enough for the duo to relax, albeit momentarily.
"I think it's dead," Rad concluded.
"I don't think robots can die," Barry intervened. "They were never alive to begin with."
"Just so we don't jump down that robots-living-and-dying Buneary hole, let's figure out how you turn this on."
Barry's fur stood on end at hearing his comrade's words. "T-Turn it on?! Are you forgetting something?! Something about Raichu robots almost murdering us?!"
"Relax, Barry. I'm not actually going to turn it on," Rad waved down his panicking friend. "I'm just trying to figure out how it works. I bet this thing is worth a fortune!"
As he examined the potentially prized Pokémon look-alike, Rad realized that the end of the Shinx's tail had been inserted into a socket on the floor of its containment unit. With one firm tug, Rad freed the tail revealing that the end was rounded and open as opposed to the star-shaped end of an actual Shinx's tail.
"Eep!" Barry shielded his face and braced for it.
…
Nothing happened.
The Togedemaru peeked out of his paws and breathed out in relief.
"See?" Rad tosses the tail to the ground. "Completely harmless."
Without warning, the Shinx's eyes light up.
"Look!" Barry shouts.
They jerked away from the robot as its head spins and joints bend.
"Running system startup," said an electronic female voice. "Automatic system functions are operational. Booting artificial intelligence program. Booting adaptive learning program..."
"It can talk?!" Rad exclaimed.
A short melodic jingle of beeps and boops sounded before the Poké-bot stands before them at full attention. "System boot: one hundred percent complete."
Rad approached the active entity in awe. "Whoa, you must be Dayna."
"'Dayna'. Command not recognized," the Shinx replied.
The Raichu pointed behind the robot. "That's what it says on your clipboard."
"I will register 'Dayna' as a potential command."
"Hey, this is pretty cool!" Rad looked back at his friend cowering behind him. "Barry, it looks like this robot doesn't want to hurt anyone. Otherwise, she probably would've murdered us by now."
"Rad, this is such a bad idea!" Barry whimpered. "It could— Wait... How do you know it's a she?"
Rad shrugged. "She sounds like a she."
"I don't think robots have genders!"
"'Gender'. Command not recognized," Dayna reacted. "Operator may not be qualified to command this unit. Scanning for valid operator."
Before anyone could respond, Dayna emitted a blinding flash with her artificial eyes, causing Rad and Barry to flinch.
"Ack!"
"Scan complete. Operator not recognized. Please state your name."
"The name's Rad," said the Raichu rubbing his eyes. "And this Togedemaru here is my partner, Burton McBearington."
The globe-shaped Pokémon hesitated. "Uh, hi... scary robot Shinx. M-my friends call me 'Barry'. And by friends, I mean Rad cuz… he's my only friend."
"'Friend'. I will register that word for further analysis," Dayna turned to Rad, examining him from head to toe. "May I ask how fresh your wounds are? Do you require a visit to a Pokémon Center?"
"What? Oh! You mean the cheeks, the ear and missing tail, right?" Rad gestured to his non functioning body parts. "Well, that's a long story! But to make a long story short, I lost them in an epic battle with a… uh… an Aerodactyl! Yeah! That thing chewed me up something fierce! It ate my tail, ripped off my cheeks— it was wicked gruesome! I mean sure, I lost the ability to use electricity and all, but it was a small price to pay for keeping our home safe from that flying creep!"
Barry put his paw to his face. "Really, Rad? Of all the things you could have thought of…"
"My data on Raichu suggests your inability to harness electricity may be due to a separate issue," says Dayna. "Further analysis states my data on fossil Pokémon suggests your incident had a miniscule chance of occurring."
Rad cocked an eyebrow. "Huh?"
"I think she means your story's bogus," said Barry.
"Well, it was a lot better than Mack's lightning strike story!" the Raichu retorted.
"Yeah, but that one sounded probable."
"Probability of damage due to lightning strike: one point three seven out of ten percent chance of failure," Dayna stated. "My steel body is designed to withstand multiple lightning strikes of energy and its' temperatures as well as collisions registering at a maximum of 300 miles per hour and unsweetened oatmeal without fruit."
"That's... oddly specific," says Barry.
"Cool story, Dayna. Hey! I have an idea!" Rad said with faux enthusiasm. "Why don't we take you back to the Lair? We could sell you for your parts, but it'll be much more awesome if you lived with us! You can be my robot butler!"
"Rad!" chided the Togedemaru.
"Okay, we can take turns," Rad sighed.
All of a sudden, the door of the room was greeted to a racket of banging, scraping and shaking from the other side. It didn't take long before the doorway was pried open and the rampaging robotic Raichus clambered through.
"The killer robots are back!" Barry ducked behind Rad.
Dayna stood in front of the two in a bracing stance. "A threat has been detected. Please stand behind me, gentlemen."
Rad and Barry stepped back and Dayna's ears and antenna retreated into her head. In their place, the Shinx produced a box-shaped apparatus around her face that was outfitted with sets of mirrors. In each of the four corners of the box surrounding her head, four low powered lasers pointed at the intruding Raichus, meeting in the center. Dayna's bulb eyes were next to go into her head and her whole body vibrated as a thundering humming sound emitted, getting louder and louder. Sparks of blue electricity arced and sprang across the Shinx robot's feet until finally, wide beams of light shot out of the holes of her eyes with an ear-deafening blast. The Raichu doppelgängers were bathed in an impressive and violent display of light and electricity. The rogue robots explode, shattering into many pieces, leaving nothing behind but fried shards of components giving off wisps of black smoke.
As soon as it happened, it was over. Dayna's laser array went back into her head and her normal defining features returned. Quiet also made its return to the facility as Rad and Barry stared on at the mass destruction, eyes wide and jaws to the floor. After a brief pause, Rad broke the silence.
"That… ...was… ...amazing!" The Raichu cheered with exuberance.
"Upon examining the situation, I suggest differently. The prototype has been activated," Dayna stated.
"I-I'm sorry," Barry stuttered. "Prototype? What prototype?"
"Executing emergency operation: Warner."
"Warn who?" Rad dropped his elation.
Without acknowledging the two, the robot Shinx darts out of the room and back down the dark corridor.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" With his looting bag in his mouth, Rad and his partner gave chase after her.
The Pokémon ran back through the twisting and turning hallways of the facility. Using every ounce of muscle in his legs, Rad managed to catch up just behind the speeding Shinx. He then managed a strenuous bound into the air, latching onto the robot's plug tail with his paws.
"Wait!" Rad tried to yell as his clenched teeth remained clamping the loot bag.
"I am sorry," says Dayna. Her head rotated completely to look back at her pursuer. "I cannot have you compromising the mission."
The robot's head remained still as her entire body leapt up, turned around 180 degrees to line up with her head and landed on her feet. Standing still and facing the opposite direction, Dayna's back and face then opened up and shifted around with lightning speed, forming what looked like the end of a cannon.
"Hey!" the Raichu yelped as he was shoved into the robot's open back compartment. After being locked closed, the robot Shinx acted as expected and shot poor Rad out like a cannonball, hurtling him behind his Togedemaru partner. The Pokémon shrieked as he flew away until he met a wall face first and fell down, with obnoxious coincidence, into a waste bin. Dayna reverted to her original form and resumed her escape.
"Rad! Are you okay?!" Barry slid to a stop and returned to his fallen comrade.
"Barry, did you see that?" Rad groaned from inside his trash prison.
"Unfortunately, I did," replied his flustered companion. "I don't believe it either!"
"That is the craziest robot I've ever seen," The Raichu climbed out of the bin after finding his bag. "Let's get outta here!"
The robot Shinx was successful in finding the hole the looting Pokémon went through to enter the abandoned building earlier. Once she was out, Dayna scanned her surroundings as if looking for something she lost. Soon, Rad and Barry finally make it out of the facility. The panting and sweating Pokémon crawled toward the robot, exhausted from the high-speed pursuit.
"Hold— whew! Hold it right there!" Rad gasped.
Dayna ignored him again and stood in another bracing position. Her feet suddenly fired jets of bright blue flame out from under them and the Shinx zoomed into the sky, leaving the too-tired-to-be-very-shocked faces behind.
"It… huff… It can fly?" The exasperated Raichu wheezed and fell on his face. "Aw, of course it can fly." His words were muffled by the ground.
"This... is not good," Barry peeped.
...
...
After they escaped from the underground facility, located within a dense nameless forest, Rad the Raichu and Barry the Togedemaru make their way back home. The forest was situated just outside an abandoned town spotted with dilapidated buildings. A few blocks away from the town, a dried up lake reveals a broken underground pipe digging into the parched earth. Large enough for most Pokémon to walk through, the pipe branches off deep into a tremendous open den.
The burrow dubbed "The Lair" was home to a plethora of Pokémon wild, lost and forgotten. Lined up against the den's walls were densely packed towers of cardboard boxes and milk crates stacked high. Holes cut out of the boxes functioned as makeshift doors and windows, making them resemble apartment blocks. The Pokémon occupants cleaned up the "streets" of dirt and grime and passed their time trading junk they have found during their ventures on the outside. Near the entirety of the cave-sized dwelling was fairly lit up thanks to an aging power generator the handier Pikachu and Rowlet residents managed to get working. The living spaces were illuminated with old camping lanterns, discarded Christmas lights and even one of those slightly morbid novelty Magikarp lamps with a pull cord. Rad and Barry stumble through the complex of boxes with their loot from the facility in tow.
"Ah, home sweet hole-in-the-ground," said Rad. "One of these days, I'm gonna run this dump, Barry."
"Uh oh. It's them again," Barry gestured toward an Elekid and Litten walking in their direction.
"Hey, look! It's the fearless explorer!" the Elekid chuckled.
"Find any holes to fall in, Rad?" mocked the Litten.
"Ha. Ha. Real funny guys," Rad leaned in close to Barry's ear as the pestering Pokémon leave past them. "How did they know that?"
"I don't know," whispered Barry. "They must be talking about another hole."
Meanwhile at the other side of the Lair, an Electabuzz stood with his arms crossed in front of a pile of scrap metal and discarded appliances. He watched his Rowlet assistant count coins and sort them into burlap bags.
"Welp, that's almost everyone," the electric Pokémon concluded. "We're just waiting—"
"Hey, Mack!" Rad called out.
"Just waiting on Rad."
The Raichu sauntered up to the organized Pokémon with his tattered sack over his shoulder. "Yo, what's up, chief? How's junk management treating ya?"
"Finally brought something home, Rad?" Mack the Electabuzz scowled.
"I sure did… Behold!" Rad lifted the bag over his head, releasing two snack-sized bags of potato chips and pretzels. "Some of it might be past the 'Best By' date."
Mack held his stoic expression. "What is this?"
"What do you mean 'what is this'? It's food! You're welcome!"
"Food is always needed, Rad, but your job was to go find scrap and spare parts."
"Fair enough," the Raichu winked. "I'll have you know, Barry and I found something you might be interested in."
He dug his head into the sack and pulled out the remote device they picked up from the abandoned facility.
"Aahh~" Rad vocalized his best impression of a choir of angels and dropped the item to the floor unceremoniously. "It's a walkie-talkie."
The Electabuzz gestured the Rowlet to take the device over to the pile.
"Hmm… not bad," said Mack. "We could use this to fix the radio."
The Raichu's intact ear drooped. "It's 'not bad'?! C'mon man! This was my biggest haul yet!"
"Yes Rad, but in the matter of just over a month, it's also the only haul you've had. You need to do more than just the minimum to live here! Don't you ever think of the community?" Mack gestured to the stray residents of the den. "Everyone needs to contribute their share of work and excursion after excursion, you've managed to come up empty-handed. Honestly, I'm impressed; I don't know how someone can fail so much that number of times."
"Well, I brought something now!" Rad exclaimed. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
"It's a start," the Electabuzz boss huffed. "Keep it up and I won't have to save your butt from getting exiled. Understand?"
"Can I just get my pay?" Rad sighed.
The Rowlet assistant obliges and throws a small bag of coins at the Raichu's face.
"Thank you."
...
...
Barry rested on the dirt dusted ground, waiting for his partner to come back to their cardboard box abode. Their home sat in a corner close to the rest of the Pokémon living quarters. The water damaged walls were decorated with misshapen cut-out windows, lost buttons of assorted sizes and colors and some mediocre crayon art of orange-hued skies and emerald grassy fields. Barry thought a home would look more like home with some pictures on the wall (much to Rad's dismay). At the price of nothing, it was as good as it gets.
Barry hops up from the ground and spots Rad, looking smug, returning with the coins.
"How'd it go?" the Togedemaru asked.
"We've made it, little buddy!" Rad released their pay to his feet. "We almost died, but it was worth it! There's enough to last us almost the whole month. Barry, this calls for a celebration."
The rotund Pokémon smiled wide and rolled into their box house. He returned dragging a saucer of spotted yellow apples, a half-eaten candy bar and bits of discolored fruit rendered nearly unrecognizable.
"Our 'best food' collection won't be lonely for long," Rad took one of the apples and began to eat. "We can finally take a break from dumpster diving."
Before chowing down, Barry looked up at his friend. "Uh, Rad?"
"Hm?" the Raichu acknowledged with his mouth full.
"Shouldn't we tell someone?" Barry asked.
"What? About the robot?"
"Yeah, I mean, should we have really let it go? I can't help but feel a little guilty. What if we just let loose some unspeakable terror onto the world?"
"It's just one little robot, Barry," Rad held his paws up, sizing up the mecha Shinx they encountered. "I think the world will be okay."
"That wasn't just a little robot, Rad! You saw what it could do! What exactly were people doing down there? Why would anyone want to build mechanical Pokémon anyway?"
"I don't know! Humans are sad, sad creatures. There's no point in trying to understand them. I mean, Trainers can be a bit more approachable, but who wants to be loyal to someone who puts you through rigorous training and ceaseless battling?"
"At least humans give them decent food," said Barry meticulously looking over the chunk of "fruit" in his paw. "And a warm bed."
"Hey, we made it this far without human help!" Rad gestured toward the home they made together. "But you do bring up an interesting point. Why are people always trying to one up Pokémon? We're way cooler than any walking talking man-made tin can."
"Even if it's one that can fly and blow up other robots?" Barry commented.
The Raichu gulped in response. It was much easier to say there was nothing they could do to Dayna, a seemingly unstoppable robo Pokémon, from exacting whatever "emergency program" it was proceeding with, but the more he thought of it, the more it irritated him. Mack's words echoed in his head:
Don't you ever think of the community?... I don't know how someone can fail so much that number of times.
The Raichu looked down at his food and his appetite weakened. The sick feeling was accompanied by an amalgamation of headache-inducing frustration, nauseating guilt and a chest full of burning ambition. He decided enough was enough.
Rad stood up, surprising his colleague, with a stern brow-furrowing look of determination.
"I want to go back," he said. "I'm done disappointing people."
"Back where?" Barry questioned.
"We should go back to the abandoned building and look for something to help us get to Dayna."
The Togedemaru's spikes stood straight. "What?! Are you crazy?! We almost died and now you want to go back there?!"
"I'm not accepting Dayna getting away. What if we were meant to find her in that place? You're right, Barry. We should go find her!" Raichu gleamed and placed his paws on his friend's shoulders (or lack thereof).
"I meant we should get someone else to find her!" said Barry. "W-What if there's more homicidal robots down there?!"
"Think about it! When we bring back that homicidal heap of scrap, we can rewire it or whatever and use it to protect the Lair! We won't have to worry about rampaging robots, Mack will be so proud, he'll pay us quadruple of what anyone else makes and we'll be heroes! It's a win-win-win situation!"
If anyone felt bad now, it was Barry. He regretted being the one to bring up killer robots again, but not wanting to dull his friend's newfound selflessness, he supported Rad's idea with some level of reluctance. "Well… that does sound nice..."
"Thanks little buddy! You won't regret this!" Rad grabbed Barry's paw, shaking it up and down and dragged the poor Togedemaru as they darted away from their home.
"Oh… why can't we just live normally?" Barry sighed.
...
End of Chapter 1
Author's Note:
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoy this little story of mine.
If you are enjoying this, please go check out J'LoBuizel and his fanfiction on this site, especially if you like funny stories and Lagomorphshipping. He inspired me to write this story.
Thanks again and have a good one! ^_^