"Come on, where is he already?" She growled to herself. "He only lives around the block. Are we going out for lunch or not?"
After a few more minutes, she grew tired of waiting and stormed off, towards her boyfriend's house...
...where a very interesting scene was going on.
The Pidgeot had a broken wing, cracked rather nastily. He would have been clutching it in agony if a tall, dark figure wasn't sitting on his back, pounding his head against the floor.
However, the attack stopped when the doorbell rang. "Hmm? Who's that?" whispered the strange guy, who had broken in and started beating him up for no apparent reason.
"Hey, you! Open this door! What happened to lunch? I've been waiting for you for hours!"
A quick glance at the clock showed that this was probably quite an exaggeration. But the figure on his back laughed.
"Your girlfriend? Hm... I'll get her for you." The Pidgeot felt the weight come off his back, but was in no condition to do anything... but he tried to pull himself together... maybe escape, or warn his girl...
"Come on, open up! I know you're in here!" Screeched the Seadra, slamming her fists against the door. But she paused for a moment as a pained scream echoed throughout the house.
"Wha... what the..." She didn't get any further before the door and a good section of the house in front of her exploded, throwing her back. By the time the neighbours got there, there was no sign of anyone...
"Any sign of him?"
"Yeah... you were gone for ages."
"No... he should be back by now." Blue growled. "I'm getting bored. We'll go and look for him, if he's not here in another hour."
"By the way... did you hear that explosion a while ago?"
"Huh?"
"Something blew up, over that way." He pointed. "Not too far away."
"Blew up?" He looked a little concerned. "No, I didn't hear anything."
"Hmm... you would've been closer to it than us."
"Yeah... well... you two have much better hearing than me."
"You're right, I didn't hear anything either." Chadran piped up.
"Well, it probably doesn't concern us." Blue said, closing the conversation. "On second thought, we need BJ. Come on, we'll split up and look for him. I'll be there fastest anyway..." And Blue was gone.
The other three shrugged. It wasn't much good without their whole band anyway, and they were all eager to learn what was up with their mate and the birds...
He must've made some sort of noise, or something, because two of the band had suddenly stopped playing and snapped their heads in his direction, the Lugia and the Houou. He hadn't heard the conversation after that, but it was quite obvious that they had seen something.
He probably hadn't helped by panicking, and now all five of them were out hunting for whoever had been watching them from across the road...
He heard a noise overhead and ducked under a large tree as the Zapdos soared overhead. Chancing a sprint to the alley behind the house, he was dismayed to hear a musical, triumphant call from the Lugia.
Running madly, panting heavily, the Suicune ducked into a doorway and watched from the shadows as all five birds passed overhead. They circled a few times, then on a call from one of them, he didn't know which, spread out again. He watched for a moment, then risked another run.
Running at a speed that the fastest athletes couldn't match, he tore down the alley. He felt, rather than saw, one above him... But she gave no indication of having seen him.
Damn, this is gonna be hard...
But all thought of running was wiped from his mind as he felt a flamethrower rake across his back. They were attacking him! Screeching to a halt, he glared up at the Moltres, and shot out a Bubblebeam. The bird screamed in pain and took a nosedive, but was saved by the Lugia, and within seconds the other three had dropped down around him.
"What do you think you're doing?" Gold snarled. "What did you attack Maura for?"
Maura... right, that's one identified.
"She attacked me first!" He snarled right back. "Look!"
Scorch marks decorated his back. The other birds looked suprised.
"Who are you?"
"Hmph." He refused to say anything.
"I know you. You're Sammy, from Josh's band!"
Crap...
"So that's what you're here for? Spying on us? Trying to cripple our friends?"
"I wasn't going to hurt you! She attacked me first!"
"No I didn't..." Maura and Laura stepped into sight. "I didn't even see you!"
"Then where did I get these?"
"Probably got one of your friends to do it beforehand. Just the sort of thing you lot would pull."
"Right... you attack me and then blame my friends for it." He snarled. "Well, if you don't mind, I've got a practice to get to."
"Hey, you can't just run off like that." Laura said, her eyes narrowing, as she stepped in his way.
"What, you're gonna stop me?" He tried to brush her aside, trying to ignore a strange prickling sensation in his limbs and face.
"Yes. Why are you here?" Laura remained firm.
"I don't have to answer to you," he snarled, and tried to shove her aside a little harder, snapping menacingly. However, somehow he managed to get his jaws around one wing, and bit deep.
Silver was now completely enraged. "Now you're attacking me! That does it!" She clapped both wings over his head, which only seemed to enrage him more.
"Hydro pump!" Water gushed from his mouth, blowing the Lugia back against a building, where she slumped to the ground. The others gave yells of protest as BJ began to run.
"Don't hurt my friends!" Zelda screeched as only a Zapdos can, her body alive with electricity and eyes glowing a brilliant electric yellow. "ZAP CANNON!"
Electricity from her outspread wings and the rest of her body gathered into a point at her beak, until there was a huge glowing yellow spark there... which fired forward at their thunder-weak rival. His screams of pain were cut off as Aria let off the Icebeam she had been charging, freezing the Suicune in a block of ice, held in a rather uncomfortable-looking, pain-wracked position.
Laura slowly got up from where she lay, and looked at the damage to her wing. "Hmmm... doesn't look too bad."
"You should probably get it checked for rabies though."
"Not funny."
"Man..." Zelda looked a little scared. "I didn't mean to hit him that hard."
"Oww..." Maura groaned. "What did he attack me for?"
"Did you attack him?"
"No... I never saw him. First thing I know, I've got a Bubblebeam half-killing me."
"Weird... Sammy was never the violent type. I'd expect that from Josh, maybe, but..."
"Well, let's leave him here."
"Huh? Will he be okay in there?"
"Don't worry. He'll live. Suikun are made to take low temperatures, and it'll melt off eventually."
The five birds walked away from the scene, none of them noticing a bright-eyed, dark-swathed figure on the rooftop above watching with amusement.
"So... have you found him?"
Josh snorted and waved at something around the corner. Looking, they found the rather large ice block and its unhappy occupant.
"Whoa... What happened?"
"No idea. Wanna let him out?"
Eric shrugged and held out his hands, releasing waves of heat, and soon the ice ran into water. Eric jumped back a bit, but soon realised the water was evaporating around his feet anyway, and continued.
Soon he'd managed to free Sammy's head. He screamed for a moment, then fell into a fit of coughing. Eric continued to free the rest of his body, as Josh moved to question the Suicune.
"What happened?"
"Huh? Where... what..." BJ looked around in a panic, finally realising the predicament he was in. Eric managed to free one of his arms.
"We found you here, trapped in that iceblock. What happened?"
"Oh man... I saw the girls... They attacked me..."
"What?"
"Yeah... they're all birds... legendary birds..."
"Hmm... did you see them singing?"
BJ gulped and nodded. "Yeah. The Lugia's their main voice. Absolutely fantastic."
"Damn..."
"Maura's the Moltres, she attacked me. They denied it afterwards, but look at my clothes!" He twisted as much as he could while most of his body remained incased. "Then the bitches got all mad when I retaliated, and put me in this - after hitting me with a Zap Cannon..."
"Hmph... come on, we're going home."
"What? No way! I'm gonna get them back for..."
Blue grabbed BJ by the muzzle. "Oh, yeah, that's gonna look good isn't it? Jealous band going over to beat up their rivals? We could get arrested. We wouldn't be allowed in the Battle of the Bands. Re-e-eally smart."
BJ looked shocked. "Oh..."
"Yeah. So just get out of there and let's go home."
Josh stalked away as Eric melted the last of the ice. Just as the Suikun was stretching muscles locked by ice, the leader spun around.
"Sammy... there's something... different about you. Did they do anything else?"
"No... How different?"
"I don't know... you just look different."
The other two looked at him too. "Yeah... maybe..."
Sammy raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. Come on, we should go."
He attributed the pains in his limbs, chest and face to being trapped so long in the ice...
Josh's comment was eating away at him. He was different? It could be paranoia... but even as he walked, his legs felt funny. The pains had lasted for ages, until he had managed to calm down, when they had mysteriously died away.
But it was getting to him. He couldn't sleep. He'd gone out to take a walk in the cool night air, but there was something disturbing in the air... a prescence...
He was so lost in his thoughts that he never saw the woman coming. She collided with him, knocking him over.
"Oh... I'm sorry... I didn't see you..." She babbled. The Suikun focused - it was a Kadabra morph, and she looked like she'd been crying rather badly.
"That's okay... what's wrong?"
"Huh? Oh... It's my husband. He said he was going for a walk... but now he's gone..."
"Gone?"
"As he was leaving I heard a scream. I looked outside, and there was no sign of him. I searched for him psychically... nothing!"
"What?"
"It's impossible... unless he were dead... but he's a Graveller, and I can't see how there could be no sign of him..."
"Hmm..."
"I mean, it's impossible! Nothing could move something that big, that heavy, that fast..."
"Could it be possible he's beyond your range?"
"Huh?"
"Maybe something teleported him somewhere, I don't know..."
"Maybe..."
"I've got a friend who's a powerful psychic... maybe he'll be able to help you. I'll give him a ring."
She nodded thankfully. He strode back to his house and scooped up the phone, pressing Josh's button on the speed-dial.
It rang...
And rang...
And rang...
"Hello?" Said someone on the other end of the line.
"Graham!" He said, recognising the voice of Josh's dad, who he had yet to meet in anthro form. "Did I wake you up?"
"No, I'm nocturnal now." He laughed. "Golbat. Makes it a little harder to pick up the phone, though. That's Sammy, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"I think Josh said you were... Suikun? Lucky guy. Your whole band's pretty lucky."
"Yeah..."
"Anyway, what are you calling at this hour for? You should be asleep! Or are Suikuns nocturnal too?"
"No. I just need to talk to Josh about something..."
"I'm sorry, he left a while ago. Said something about wanting to test his powers. I don't blame him, if I had gotten that morph I wouldn't stop testing them."
"No kidding."
"He's been acting a little weird lately. Sometimes really confident, like he's laughing about something, something not very nice by his expression. But sometimes he's really drawn into himself, thoughtful and depressed..."
"I know what you mean."
"Do you want me to give him a message?"
"Oh... no, never mind. I'll talk to him tomorrow."
"Fine. Seeya, Sammie!"
The phone hung up. Sammy went back outside to the Kadabra.
"I'm sorry, he's not home. I'll talk to him tomorrow. If you give me your address, I'll keep in contact..."
"Sure..."
She scribbled down her home address and he waved goodbye before going to bed.
On a thick branch of a tree down the street, two glowing eyes illuminated an evil smile on a shadowy figure, though it was seen by no-one...
