As she flew closer, she recognised the shape. No... it couldn't be... She rubbed her eyes, not believing what she saw...
Zelda!
She was flying determinedly, but neither towards or away from the city. Maura charged full-speed at her friend, trying to catch up, not thinking of anything but reuniting with the missing morph, not realising she was leaving the city behind...
"ZELDAAAAA!" She shreiked happily, as she closed in on her friend. The electric bird stopped her flight and hovered in midair, looking for the source of the call.
As she spotted the flaming ball that was Maura travelling straight towards her, her expression changed to something approaching sadness, and she dropped her head, looking at the ground.
"Zelda!" Maura called again as she pulled herself to a stop in front of her friend. "Where have you been? We've been so worried... we thought something had happened to you and..."
Maura trailed off as she realised the Zapdos morph wasn't talking back. She just stared down at the ground.
"What's wrong?" Maura extended one arm out to lift Zelda's head, to look in her eyes...
Suddenly the electric bird's head snapped up, and twisted into as much of a malicious grin as the beak would allow as both hands flew up to clap around Maura's. FireBird could not do anything as she saw electricity build in her best friend's feathers.
She made an attempt to escape as the full-scale thunder attack was released, but her 'friend' was holding her arm tight, too tight. She screamed in pain as electricity flashed, then slumped as it finally ended. Zelda held onto her for a second as she fell, then she felt the pressure on her arm disappear...
Even as she took the plummeting fall to the ground, her conscioussness did the same. She never knew whether or not she hit the ground.
~-~-~-~
The other legendaries waited. And waited. And waited.
Maura and Sammy didn't come back.
Finally, Artic stood up. She counted the remaining
legendaries. Seven, including herself. Although she wasn't sure about Blue
anymore, lying unconscious...
Earlier on, she would have suggested that they all
went together. But they couldn't just leave Blue here- they couldn't!
Suddenly, she had an idea. "Silver!"
Her friend turned to her. "Yes?"
"Lugia is half-psychic, right? Can't you find out
where they are?"
Silver hesitated. "I don't... know." Then she closed
her eyes...
The others anxiously waited as Laura sat there,
perfectly still. It seemed like an eternity before her eyes opened. Her
face showed worry.
"I can't find any of them!" She explained. "I can't
sense Maura or Zelda, or Sammy."
"Where could they be? I mean..."
"They couldn't all have gone... wild..."
"Could they?"
"Would you be able to sense them if they were..."
"I don't know..."
They ran into a heated conversation, which turned
into an argument as the boys joined in. Then, as one, they all stopped.
Josh was waking up.
He stretched and opened his eyes, looking at the
worried morphs in front of him, unsure of what was going on. He opened
his mouth to ask them...
Nothing came out.
Suprised, he tried again - still nothing. Not a
gasp. Turning to the side, he spotted a sheet of metal in the ground...
a reflective surface...
Hovering over to it, he examined his image... and
realised what had happened. He was a full Mewtwo. And Mewtwo couldn't speak.
Or sing...
~-~-~-~
The remainder of the small army that had stormed
the stadium was limping off, away from the city. Defeated and disgraced,
they were thinking of revenge...
And they found it when they met up with the local
wild pokemon around the city.
The pokemon were too easy to convince to join their
little rebellion. The ex-morphs trained them, built them up, organized
them...
Once this army was complete, not even the legendaries
would stand in their way...
~-~-~-~
Blue's face was a mask of calmness, but that in no
way reflected how he felt within. He hadn't learnt to control telepathy
yet. He didn't know how to use it. But he had no voice now, and he needed
some
way to communicate with the others... but how?
His mind pulled up an idea - some years ago, he'd
learnt some sign language, when his grandfather had lost his hearing. He
was no expert... but it was better than nothing.
That was, assuming that one of the others knew sign
language too...
He started making guestures, asking "Do any of you
understand this?"
Most of them just looked at him questioningly, but
Holly nodded. He sighed with relief, and signed his predicament.
"Hmm... that's a problem." She said. The others
looked at her, and she passed on his message.
"Look, Blue... we don't know where Maura, Zelda
or Sammy have gotten to. Can you try to sense them?"
He nodded, looking rather confused, and searched...
and after a couple of seconds, he turned to one side of the crater.
"Is it them?" Laura asked excitedly. Josh didn't
move, just kept watching. In a moment, a head appeared over the side of
the crater.
"Oh, thank god, you're here." It was a Jolteon morph,
who was looking both worried and relieved. "You're not going to believe
this!"
"What is it?"
He slid down the side of the crater to stand in
front of them. "I was just digging around in the rubble, see if I could
find anything or anyone, and I did."
"Did you find one of us?"
"Huh?"
"Three of us have gone missing." Explained Chadran.
"We can't find them, not even psychically."
The Jolteon's eyes widened. "Then it's worse than
I thought. Have a look at this!"
He held out one yellow paw. In it lay a tiny sphere,
the size of a large marble, but one any person would recognize on sight.
It was a pokeball.
They gazed in wonderment and disbelief at it. Half
of it was a deep brown-red muddy colour, the other a brilliant yellow.
"What sort of pokeball is that?" Asked Thunder after
a moment. "I've never seen one in those colours before."
"We think whoever had this dropped it, by accident.
They may've been intending to use one like it on you."
"A ball that captures morphs?" Thunder asked as
they all looked at the Jolteon increduously. "You can't do it. They've
tried, the balls just don't wo...rk..."
He trailed off as the guy enlarged the ball and
tossed it to the ground. It cracked open, and the red light materialised...
And a tall Pidgeot morph stood there regally, wing-arms
by his sides as he stared blankly straight ahead, not taking in anything
around him. The legendaries just stared.
"We haven't managed to get a peep out of this guy.
He won't speak, won't move, won't even defend himself if attacked. Just
stands there like a statue."
"Oh..." Silver stood on her toes to stare the morph
in the eyes. "How could anyone do this?"
"We think the balls are more powerful than the normal
sort. He's completely under his 'master''s control." He answered sadly.
Blue stepped up, and cupped his hands around the
Pidgeot's head. There was a faint blue glow, which quickly vanished...
and Blue shook his head.
Silver tried too. "Can't pick up a thought... he's
got some sort of block on him. Or..."
Everyone looked at each other. They were all thinking
the same thing, but nobody wanted to say it. What if they couldn't pick
up a thought... because there were no thoughts? What if he was nothing
but a mindless zombie?
"Now listen to me." The Jolteon said firmly. "Three
of your friends have disappeared. You can't pick them up psychically -
just like this guy here. We can only assume the worst. If these three have
been captured by these balls... then they're going to be controlled by
whoever has captured them. Remember that. They might not be themselves."
"You don't know that..."
"But we can only assume that." He returned the Pidgeot
to the ball. "I'll get some friends together, see if we can find out anything
from the Pidgeot... Here's my number." He handed them a card. "You lot
be careful. The last thing we need is someone running around controlling
people's minds..."
And as he climbed the side of the crater, he added,
"Especially people as powerful as you!"
~-~-~-~
The same old shadowy figure was... actually sitting
back and relaxing. Having obtained three of his ten targets, he was content
to let the others stew in their fear for a while. It was still a couple
of hours before dawn, and he'd managed to obtain a newspaper and was unfolding
it to read...
He froze as he read the headline: POKEBALL PERIL
- TERRORIST BODYSTEALER ON THE LOOSE! And below that was a picture of the
pokeball and the Pidgeot anthro he'd caught about a week ago.
The pokeball he'd dropped during the concert!
Scanning rapidly through the article, he
cursed. He had to get the pokeball back... before they could break the
Pidgeot free of his compulsion. This would set his plan back somewhat.
Storming out of his house, he was soon gone into
the night...
~-~-~-~
The remaining legendaries, now more scared and paranoid
than ever, had decided to make sure that they ALWAYS stayed in pairs, or
more. Artic and Holly stayed in one house together. Laura was staying with
Blue, as she was the only one who could actually understand him. The other
three boys were all staying together in the same house too.
Aria slowly woke up to Holly's continued efforts.
"Artic, wake up..."
"Hnn?"
"It's nearly morning" She said, and yawned - she'd
been up all night keeping guard in case whoever it was attacked in the
dark. "I'm gonna have a shower... You shouldn't be asleep by yourself..."
Aria groaned and slowly rose. Holly watched for
a moment and then left for the bathroom.
Artic, bleary-eyed, moved to the window to take
a breath of fresh air. She was quite surprised, in her still half-asleep
state, when talons closed around her shoulders and pulled her out. She
woke up pretty quickly after that.
She managed to drag herself free of the talons,
leaving a few bloody marks on her ice-blue/white feathers. She spun around,
and looked up to see Firebird attacking her.
"Maura!" She cried, then had the prescence of mind
to dodge the flamethrower the firebird aimed at her.
"No... it's true, he got you..." She said despairingly,
dodging another attack. "Maura! Fight it! I'm your friend! Don't attack
me!"
Maura's next attack seemed a little hesitant, and
was way off mark. "Yes! Don't listen! Don't obey him! You can do it, Maura!"
The next flamethrower died in her throat. Artic
was elated to see the look of battle fade from her friend's face and be
replaced by one of despair...
"Please... Aria... help me..."
"You've got it! Just concentrate!"
She watched as an inner battle went on inside Maura.
She screamed, then collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.
"I think... I've got it now..."
"I told you you could do it..." Aria moved to the
Moltres morph, to help her up.
She experienced mild discomfort as her ice-based
body came in contact with Maura's flaming feathers, but it was nothing
she couldn't handle. She looked at the bird, then hugged her.
"Oh, Maura, I'm so glad you're okay!"
"Well... Personally, I'm so glad you're such a gullible
fool."
This took a couple of seconds to sink in, by which
time the flaming feathers had already expanded into an unbearable blaze.
Artic cried out in pain, and almost through instinct unleashed a Blizzard
attack...
Holly rushed out, dressed again. The first thing
she saw was Artic, lying on the floor, badly burnt and scarred. The second
was the alternatively burnt and frozen walls and ground outside.
"Artic! Are you okay?!"
"Maura..." She croaked. "She came... attacked...
tricked me..."
"Oh no..." Holly moaned. "So it is true?"
"She wasn't herself... I thought she'd broken it,
but she was just pretending... I only just managed to attack... before
she..."
"Did you manage to see who the thief was?"
Artic just coughed up smoke. Holly moved forward,
to comfort her friend.
Something was wrong.
She paused in mid-step. How did she get back up
here? And wouldn't the attacker try to use one of the others he'd captured,
or attack personally? Artic couldn't...
She realised the truth, and began backing away from
her friend. "No... not you too..."
"What? What do you..."
"Don't try to fool me... He caught you too."
Artic closed her eyes. Holly, torn between her friend's
safety and her own, decided there was nothing she could do here, and ran
for it.
She got outside and ran onto the road, but her efforts
were somewhat hampered by the way the road in front of her suddenly exploded
in a mass of smoke and ashphalt chips, knocking her to the ground, stinging
from several cuts. When it cleared, she felt a prescence behind her, and
spun around.
"Hmm... very clever. I didn't think you'd pick up
on it... not that it's done you much good."
She looked up. It was a Charizard anthro, very tall
and extremely confident looking, wings curled around in a threatening,
smothering manner. He smirked.
"I suggest you make it easy, and just let me capture
you." He held up a ball. She snarled and spat a small bolt of flame at
him. He shot his own fireball at it, and the two attacks collided and fizzled
out.
"Hmph... okay then... Let's see if I can take you
now." He threw the ball towards her, hard. She cried out and lashed out
at it with one wing, and a nasty crack sounded... but it flew back into
his hand without her.
"Hmm... well then." He stalked up to her - approaching
faster than she had expected, suddenly just in front of her - and kicked
her, hard, in the stomach. She was thrown back across the broken road,
getting even more scratches, and completely winded. She coughed up a little
blood, but could do nothing but sob with pain.
"How about now?" He grinned, and held up the ball,
prepared to throw again. She realised she was helpless... She'd be captured,
this time...
Staring up at the Charmorph's face, she realised
she could do one more thing...
Gathering up all her psychic energy, she took a
mental picture of the scene in front of her, the Charizard throwing the
pokeball, and broadcast it across the psychic wavelength to anyone within
range - probably most of the town. The morph faltered as the image hit
him too, and the ball missed. He snarled, realising what she'd done.
"Damn you!" He growled, and kicked her again, even
harder. She was thrown into the air, landed hard and skidded across the
road. The pain was incredible. She knew there was no hope for her now.
But there was for the others... she thought, as
she felt the ball hit her back, and her body transmute to energy...
But her thoughts were stricken as she heard the
Charizard's voice whisper into her ball. "You may have ruined my element
of suprise... but I've got five of you now. Along with five other pokemon
and myself. I'll still get the others, never you mind..."
