Chapter3 The whole band wandered away from the practice area at a slow pace, all dead tired. Sammy and Richie lived nearby, and Josh seemed untiring and was gone as soon as he'd made the announcement. Chadran, however, had a nice long slow slither home.
"Ten AM,...Sharp?" Chadran muttered to himself once he got far enough away from the others. "Josh has either lost his mind, or gained a fine set of..."
His train of thought was derailed by a large thunder clap.
"Looks like rain," He sighed to himself, turning his head to the sky and started moving faster. He was by no means used to this new form, lacking legs. The long snake-like tail was a very weird feeling, not to mention the embarrasment of wearing something very like a skirt as he could no longer wear pants...
The storm broke long before he made it home. Although he was of a water-friendly type, it soaked his clothes and wet the road, making getting home all the harder...
Sighing again, resigned to his fate, he continued home.
~-~-~-~
Eric, unable to sleep due to his morph's instinctive aversion the pouring rain outside, sat at his drum kit and pounded. Though the drums were padded so as not to wake his parents and as such could not be heard over the ferocious storm, he could hear it in his mind as if playing full blast at a concert.
And he felt himself fumble several times in a row, before completely losing the rhythm and falling out. No... drumming when barely awake just didn't work...
He crawled his way back to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, but sleep wouldn't come, even after another half an hour. Glancing at the clock, he groaned. Well past one o'clock... if he wanted to be up and ready for practice tomorrow, he'd have to be ready soon...
Pulling his window up, he looked out, trying to ignore the biting cold of the wind and rain... They'd win the battle of the bands. They had to win. No matter what Josh's doubts may be, they were good...
But those girls... What could they be? There had always been friction between the two groups. They'd met at a previous battle of the bands, about a year ago, well before the Day of the Morph... both groups had blown the crowds away. They'd tied for first. Both groups were considered near-celebrities throughout the city.
But this one was a lot larger... that had just been a little one organised by a local radio station. This one was a full-blown concert. Although other ameteur bands would be participating, it was obvious that it would be little more than a showdown between these two bands... And it was rumoured that agents of at least one record company would be present at the concert. If they played well enough, they might be able to actually make it big time...
The intense cold finally drove Eric beyond his ability to stand it, and he slammed the window shut. He had to sleep...
~-~-~-~

A Growlithe morph was fighting for his life.
He'd been running home, to try to get out of the rain, when a huge, dark figure had appeared out of nowhere and sprawled him on the road. Fighting half-blindly through the darkness and debilitating rain, his fire attacks virtually useless, he didn't seem to have much of a chance...
A foot flew from the darkness, and he leapt back, avoiding it. Whatever was attacking him was only using physical attacks, but he'd been hit by one and, while by no means weak, it wasn't nearly as powerful as a fighting type - a fighter of that size could snap him in half with one punch. And no rock or ground type would ever be seen in this weather...
Another foot flashed forward, a sweep this time. What was this thing? He jumped it. Luckily, it didn't seem to be quite as fast as him...
He turned tail and fled from the strange being, and was rewarded by an elbow to the head, leaving him flat on the road and in a rather large puddle of water. Coughing, spluttering and feeling rather weak, he pulled himself up...
A thick, muscular tail connected, right in the stomach. The Growlithe was tossed into the air to land painfully on the concrete...
The tall, dark shape stood over him for a moment before letting out a deep laugh, which was swallowed up by the rain. A minute later, it had vanished, leaving nothing but puddles.
Closer inspection showed the Growlithe morph was also gone...

~-~-~-~
By morning, the rain had cleared somewhat, down to a fairly light drizzle. Josh's band all met up at Eric's house, although he refused to move out into the lawn for fear of the light drizzle, although Sam was quite effectively diverting the rain to avoid it hitting the rather valuable instruments. The others declined to enter his rather cramped garage, and settled for him playing from in there.
Josh was eager to practice, but it turned out harder than he thought. The light electric energy used by Richie to power his guitar was conducted by the wet ground, causing Sammy quite a bit of irritation. The entire band seemed to be a little high-strung, fatigued, not working their best. He sighed, deciding that his usual over-threatening attitude really wasn't helping the band, trying something else...
"Come on, guys! We need to win! If we beat those girls, we might get a CD. That's what we want, isn't it?"
"We don't even know what the girls are yet." Sammy pointed out.
"Yeah... for all we know they might not even be able to perform anymore..."
"We don't know if they're better, or worse, or whatever."
Josh thought about that for a moment. "We'll have a bit of a break."
The others took a moment to take this in. Blue usually didn't give breaks until they couldn't lift their paws to play another note. "Huh?"
"I think we should go take a look at what the girls are. See what they're doing." He seemed a little hesitant.
Everyone cheered up at this idea, leaping to their feet. But Blue waved them down. "Only one of us. We don't want them to know what we are. And one can sneak around a lot better than five. The rest of us can keep practising."
"I'll go." Sammy immediately volunteered.
"Hnn?"
"I'm the fastest here." He grinned a long, canine grin. "I've been looking up some info on us. I can work best in the rain. And anyway, I'm sick of getting the hotfoot from Thunder."
Josh thought. "Okay. You going by...?"
"Bus. I should be back in a couple hours."
"Okay. Just watch them a little while. See what they are, whether they've still got a chance, then come straight back, okay?"
"Right." The Suicune morph bounded off, after storing his bass guitar in the garage. A couple of seconds later, the rain once again began falling onto Richie, Josh and Chadran.
"Oh man!" Richie complained, running under the roof, trying to cover his guitar and amp. The other two ran in with the speakers and other paraphenalia.
Josh checked them over. "No damage. Come on, let's play."
~-~-~-~

Zelda worked furiously, fiddling with the speakers. As the techno-whiz of the group, she'd been more annoyed than anyone to find one of the speakers weren't working. Her long, feather-like fingers weren't helping, nor were the charges of electricity she was unintentionally but continually letting out.
Hmph. And Aria was complaining about being the Articuno. She would've swapped places with her quite happily. Electricity wasn't her favorite type.
The others were out having a break, getting some snacks and a new strap for her guitar, while she was stuck here trying to fix the machines. They should be back soon... Hmph...
Growling, she kicked the speaker. Trying to ignore the pain in her foot, she cursed for a while before returning to the speaker. Fiddling with wires, cutting, stripping and connecting with her razor-sharp feathers, she hooked it up to her guitar again and brushed her wing over the strings. Success! And just in time...
The other four winged in, Holly with a backpack. She quickly unpacked it and tossed her friend a new, somewhat more reinforced guitar strap and a bottle of Sprite.
"Right... you got it working?"
"Yep. Now, let's get to it!"
Within five minutes they'd all set up and were ready to play again. Laura looked at the others.
"Ready?"
The others gave a chorus of "Yep!", Zelda a little behind as she took a swig of her drink before hefting her instrument.
"Right. Start us off, Gold!"
The keyboard's music was quickly joined by the other instruments, then by the fantastic combonation of Aria and Laura's voices, still never failing to impress any of the band or anyone else who passed.
Or the rather stunned Suicune morph watching from the nearby bushes.

~-~-~-~

The Vaporeon morph snarled and snapped at the restraints, but it was to no effect. David and Jack watched pityingly as it blew a Water Gun at them, and it dissipated harmlessly across a forcefield.
"I can't understand it... what could cause him to snap like that?"
"Look at him carefully." David said, apparently not hearing Jack's question.
"Huh?"
"Look at him closely. He's changed."
Jack scrutinized the Vaporeon. "Hmm... I don't..."
"Look carefully. His very body shape is changing."
David looked even closer. "Maybe..."
"No, definately. Look at his arms and legs. They bend forward slightly from the body before going to the restraints. The torso is becoming narrower. And he's shrunk."
Now that he knew what to look for, David realised what his colleage was saying was true. "But... what..."
"He's becoming more Vaporeon. Losing his humanoid shape."
David reeled back. "But... that hasn't happened since... why would it happen now?"
"I'm not sure. But if I'm any judge, and this keeps going, that guy's going to be a pure-bred pokemon within a couple of days."
"Will it happen... to others?"
"We have to assume so. Come on, we've got to keep working. We have to find the cause for this. And if there's any way to prevent it."
"Before this leaks out to the media."
"Exactly. Come on, let's move."

~-~-~-~

"Honey! Time for breakfast!" Called a woman, a Sandslash morph. "Come on! Get down here, it's getting cold!"
Not getting a response, she went upstairs to wake her son, an Ekans. Looking into his room, she found he wasn't in his bed.
"Honey, where are you?" She called, searching the various rooms. Coming back to his room, she found him coiled behind the door.
"What are you doing there, huh?" She asked, confused. Her son twisted his head up to look in her eyes.
She felt paralysis lock her muscles as her son Glared at her. She managed to let out a whimper.
"W-w-what are you doing?"
He hissed trimphantly and struck, long fangs sinking into her side. She had just enough time to notice he didn't have any arms anymore before sinking into oblivion...