Author's note-  This is a story having to do with pokemon.  I do not own Pokemon or anything of the sort.  It belongs to… whoever owns it legally… not me.  This story takes place in New Eden.  I do not own New Eden… I altered it greatly, but I do not own it.  Peter F. Hamilton owns it.  Comments quoting shows, books, etcetera are properly quoted… I obviously don't own them.  The characters are MINE!  All MINE!  They are my friends!  Allies!  People I know or knew!  (or people I just made up at the spur of the moment.)  This story has language, will have violence, and maybe… possibly… eventually… adult content.  NO you sick fucks!  I don't like pokemon that much!  Anyhow, this story will also have no main characters that you know, save for the possible mention of their names.  Sorry, no ashy-washy or misty-wisty.  The pokemon are all here… they have their respective Japanese names, and there will be author's notes at the bottom of every chapter explaining things I think you might not know.  All reviews are accepted, even flames.  They must be CONSTRUCTIVE flames… or I will just read them and ignore them.  I hope you enjoy the fic.  Have fun and READ damn it!  READ!!

In school, the typical clamor of the lunch room swells in the air and climbs up to a loud roar.  Madeline, who all of her friends called "Spirit", sat at –her- lunch table.  This table contained freaks.  The real freaks.  Not the kind that dress up in Goth, or punk, and label themselves as the outcasts, not the nerds, but rather the people who are not accepted by even the lowest of the social groups in high school.  The true freaks.  They gathered at the one lunch table for the sheer fact that no other tables would accept them.  After a while, they did not all become friends, but more like a pack of wolves.  They get along just enough to enjoy arguing and occasionally fighting, but anyone to disturb the pack will get stalked, and removed by the pack as a whole.  This particular pack consisted of people with too much confidence (a girl named Genie, a girl named Nicole, and a boy named Jesse), people with none (a boy whom we never learned the name of, we will call him "Bob"), and people who pretended like they had confidence (a girl named Misty, commonly called "Fish lips").  There was one very 'normal' kid, called "Sunshine", and one insane kid, called "Mia".  Mia was Spirit's favorite person of the group.  She was Spirit's "Puppy", and thus had great lee-way in the group, despite her outgoings and constant streams of insanity.

            Mia pokes her food and begins to draw a smiley face in her mashed potatoes with some peas.  "Do you think I can ever go see my mother?"

            Spirit watches her draw in her food, "I think it's possible… dragons still exist you know… you just have to find them."

            "But it's so far away!  I used to believe that these rocks my sister and I found were magical and they belonged to my family… that… they could take us to them."

            "Everything is possib- Jesse!  Stop arguing with Misty, Misty shut up!"

"But he-!"  Misty whined.

            "I don't care!  Just shut up and talk about something useful."

"That is useful!  He-"

            "Look, if I wanted to hear people bitch and complain and yell and argue, I would have fucking stayed at –home-, so while I'm at the lunch table SHUT.  UP.   Because I don't want to hear it."

            Jesse smirks at Misty.  Nicole giggles.  Genie gets a malicious grin.  Sunshine shakes his head.  Bob laughs.  Mia sadly destroys her smiley face, "I just wish there was someplace other than here…  Away from these stupid-LOOK I squished him!"  She happily points to her destroyed smiley face.

While Mia was busy chewing and slobbering on Spirit's hair, a visitor (who we will call Brad) walked into the school, asked the office ladies for a pass, and walked quietly over to Spirit's table.  Jesse looked up and poked Spirit in the arm, "Who the hell is that?"  Spirit calmly rotates her head to the visitor, and Mia's eyes roll up to look at the strange man, then shrinks away and clings to Spirit's body.  Upon seeing the man, Spirit's face lights up with a smile and she attempts to jump up, only to fall on her ass due to her puppy desperately clinging to her.  "Make room," Spirit orders Jesse.  Jesse immediately jumps out of his chair, quickly walks to the nearest table, steals a chair from that one, and places it between his chair and Spirit's.  The entire pack shifts to make room for the extra chair.  Brad smiles and sits down.

            "Where the hell have you BEEN?"  Spirit tries not to screech to Brad

"New Eden" he replies.

            "You made –finished- it?"  Spirit's eyebrow rose.

Mia's expression changes to that of awe, and she begins pawing at Brad's arm, "You're a god?..."

            "…"  Brad just sits there and allows himself to be petted.

"Who the hell is this?!  Um… Spirit?  Friend of yours?"  Jesse questions

            Genie looks to Jesse with a bit of annoyance, "NO Jesse, she just made room for him because he's a complete and total stranger."  Nicole and the fish lipped girl giggle as Jesse quietly puts his head on the table.

            Brad sighs, "I've come to take you, it's in perfect working condition… you can take two people along with you if you'd like"

            Spirit doesn't even think of the consequences, she trusts him completely; he was her mentor… her father figure.  The first person that pops into her brain is Sabrina, her best friend since kindergarten.  Then she has to think about it, and decides that Mia would be the other good choice.  "Sabrina and Mia."

            "Huh?"  Mia looks confused.

"Who is Mia?"  He asks.

            Everyone at the table points to the girl twice the size of Spirit and who has wild, light brown hair.

            Brad smiles, "I'm staying at your place tonight, and we leave tomorrow at noon.  Good'ay m'ladies" He then kisses Mia's hand, turns to the rest of the table, "and gentlemen."  With that he turns around and leaves the school.

            The rest of the lunch period consists of Mia asking millions of questions, Jesse asking as many questions as he can until he gets glared at by Spirit, Genie cuddling Nicole.  The fish lipped girl attempting to start a fight with Jesse and to impress Genie.  Bob laughing nervously at everything, and Sunshine shaking his head at everyone's stupidity.  The rest of the school day continues as normal, and Spirit rides her bus home.  She says her ritualistic 'Goodbye Charlie' to her bus driver, and he replies with his ritualistic 'See you tomorrow Madeline."  Except this time, when Spirit smiled in response, she did it because she knew that he wouldn't.  Nobody would.

            When Spirit got inside her house, she noted that both of her parents were not home, and that Brad was in the shower.  She typed out a note to her mother explaining that she had left with a very good person…

"Mom-

I have been invited to go to New Eden.  It's a scientific reserve… A bio-dome in which everything is genetically engineered.  Every living being from bacteria to animal is a work of scientific art.  Brad was the one who invited me.  He founded Eden, and now I have been invited to New Eden.  I am going to be part of something wonderful…  I will be safe, you don't need to worry.  I still love you.

                                                -Madeline"

She knew that her mother would be hysterical, but she had to explain as best as she could.  She then called her friend Sabrina.  This phone call consisted of happy chattering, hellos, comments that made no sense, then the explanation of New Eden.  Then it consisted of hyper talking, squeaking, confusion, suspicion, indecision, and finally, Spirit convinced Sabrina that it would be okay to go, and that she would. 

            The rest of the day went well, Brad said not much to Spirit other than, pack what you will miss, not what you will need.  Then, he disappeared into the woodlands of Spirit's backyard.  Her parents got home and asked her about her day.  She gave the typical teenage "fine" responses.  She packed just what would fit into her backpack:  a sketchbook, a mechanical pencil, an eraser, an ultra fine ink pen, her baby blanket, "papa bear", some photographs, some of her favorite necklaces, and the book "the black gryphon".  She adorned her bed with the equipment she would take:  her backpack full of stuff, her trench-coat, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a brown button down over-shirt, a pair of dark ski goggles, socks, underwear, a pair of hiking boots, a belt, and her favorite necklace.

            The next morning went all too quickly.  Her parents were still asleep.  She put on her equipment as Brad entered the house.  They both left in his rental car, drove to Sabrina's house; picked her up (she only had some comics of "Johnny the homicidal maniac", the book, "Watership Down", sketchbooks with sketching materials, and a squishy pillow).  Then the three of them went to pick up Mia… completely un-prepared.  She only brought a picture of her sister, and a small snake-like light blue plush animal.  The quartet went to the space shuttle launch site near the city of Independence.

            "Wait.  This is in –space-?"

"Yes.  It orbits Jupiter… New Eden is a space station."

            The girls, aged 15 (Mia), 18 (Spirit), and 19 (Sabrina), followed Brad with no further questions.  They were too stupefied at the thoughts of the upcoming events.  They boarded the ship with fear and wonder, did as they were told, and sat there like deer in headlights as the ship took off, and left Earth's atmosphere.

            Note-  Okay… this took place in my home town… this is just the prologue, so bear with me, the pokemon and stuff come in the intro chapter (the next one).  In case you were wondering, Brad came back to Earth to visit Spirit many times during her childhood.  When she was in ninth grade, he stopped coming back to visit.  I just couldn't find anyplace to fit that in there.  The next chapter will give you… oh hell, just read it.