Chapter Eight

Zeod

"Bring it on!" I said as I rounded up all of the Grass Pokemon. "This will be fun!" I ignited my fist for the Fire Punches, punching them one by one. They got called back into their Poke Balls.

"Hey, Pony, this is like that game back at the trainers' school, isn't it?" I asked myself.

"Yep. And there is a Scizor behind you," he said.

I turned around, but, before I could do anything, Scizor had me in his claws by the neck. "Well, this isn't good," I thought as I tried to break free.

Alana

I squared off with the Mr Mime. I knew his Psychic Attacks couldn't affect me, but I was wary of what else he might be able to pull off. Such as . . .

"Mr Mime, Double Slap!" ordered the Proteus goon. I froze, recalling how another Mr Mime's Double Slap had knocked my Jolteon senseless. I had to do something to block it, but what could I do?

In the few seconds before Mr Mime struck me with his large hands, it clicked in my head. Of course! If I could evade the Double Slap, I might be able to take out the Mr Mime on the next turn. I tried a Double Team, creating four clones of myself, then began to power up a Shadow Ball. Flanked by my doubles, I almost laughed to see the confused look on Mr Mime's face but stopped myself.

"Don't let her fool you, you stupid clown!" bellowed the Proteus goon. "Find the real one! Thunderbolt!"

For a second, I wondered if I'd heard correctly. Then, I recalled that Mr Mime was compatible with Thunderbolt, a powerful Electric Attack. I had to act fast and, just as electricity began to crackle around the Mr Mime's body, I let fly with my Shadow Ball. The ball of black energy caught Mr Mime full in the chest and knocked him to the floor. He did not get up.

"GRRRRRRRR!" growled the Proteus goon as he recalled his Mr Mime. "Try this on for size!" He got ready to throw another Poke Ball.

"Oh no you don't!" I muttered as I ran at the guy and Tackled him, knocking the Poke Ball out of his hand. It rolled off down the corridor, with the goon I'd just been battling in hot pursuit. It wasn't much, but I'd taken out one of the Proteus Pokemon.

But, looking around, I knew this fight wasn't over yet. All around me, my fellow hybrids were fighting the Pokemon belonging to the Proteus agents. Then, I saw that Zeod was in trouble; a Scizor had him trapped in its claws.

Zeod

"You probably think this is . . . funny, don't you?" I gasped sarcastically. "Well, either way, it's . . . getting kind of hard to breathe!" I managed to get out before my face started turning pale.

Crystal

Since I looked as if I was defenseless, one of the Proteus goons' Pokemon used Submission on me. "Ow!" I cried. A scowl tugged onto my face, signifying pain and pure hatred to whoever attacked me without me being ready. I was on my back after that powerful Submission, finding it hard to get up and move. "Darn it!" I thought. "That Poliwrath paralyzed me!" I tried to get up but couldn't. My Espeon ears were twitching, which meant only one thing.

"Poliwrath, Mind Reader!" the Proteus goon commanded.

"If this is going the way I think it's going . . ." I thought, my ears twitching even more. My sapphire eyes widened, fear struck in them. "C'mon. body!" I thought. "Move!" My limbs were unresponsive. "Oh crud!"

"Poliwrath, Use Focus Punch!" the goon commanded.

The tadpole Pokemon came in for a blow. I braced myself, closing my eyelids tightly. I waited five seconds - no hit. I waited ten seconds. No pain in my abdomen. I waited fifteen seconds . . . "Hey, what gives!" I thought. I was expecting a huge helping of pain.

As I opened my eyes carefully, I looked at the Poliwrath that had been about to punch me floating in the air. I looked at myself and saw I was glowing a calming blue, the same color seen on the Poliwrath. Now I got it; I'd used a last-second Psychic Attack, one last defense I always seemed to lose control over. I had to say, though, it was doing quite some damage.

I ended the Attack, flinging the Poliwrath to the walls, giving it some more damage as I got the feeling back into my limbs. I got back up; the battle was just getting started, but time was not on my side.

Zeod

"Well, I guess I'm on my own," I said as I kicked some guy who was coming up behind me.

It was then I spied a garbage chute that went down. "Perfect!" I thought as I dropped the bomb down the chute. I then started kicking the Scizor like a maniac, but it had no effect.

Alana

Somehow, even though I'd told him to leave it, Zeod had ripped the bomb away from the wall and thrown it down the garbage chute. I was not very pleased; that thing was still counting down and we still had to get out of here before it blew.

"Zeod, what the hell were you playing at?!" I demanded as I used Scary Face to immobilise a Kadabra.

"Putting that bomb where it can't hurt us," he replied, still trying to take out the Scizor he was attacking.

I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of that, but Crystal (who had been battling a Poliwrath) beat me to it. "Zeod," she said, "I've scanned this whole building. The garbage chute leads into a large bin in the basement."

"So?"

"So the bomb is still in the building. And it's gonna blow in just over five minutes!"

"And we have to get clear by then," I added, glancing round at my fellow hybrids as they continued to battle. But would we have time to get clear? I didn't know, but we had to get past these Proteus goons if we were to stand any chance of escaping.

Meanwhile, I could see that Zeod wasn't getting very far with the Scizor. "Zeod!" I called, remembering the time I battled my Combusken against a Scizor. "Scizor is Bug/Steel! Try a Fire Attack!"

"What? Oh, right." Zeod launched a Firespin at the Scizor, trapping it in a flaming vortex.

"GRR!" snarled a Proteus agent as Zeod's Attack weakened the Scizor. He pulled out a Poke Ball and pointed it at the Bug/Steel Pokemon. "Scizor, return!"

I watched as the Scizor was sucked into its Poke Ball, relieved that we (or rather Zeod) had managed to take out one of the enemy Pokemon. But my relief was short-lived; we still had to try and take out the rest of the Pokemon belonging to the Proteus agents. And, then, there was the "small matter" of the bomb . . .

Just then, the building shook. "W -what was that?!" I cried as I was sent flying and crashed straight into Matt. But he didn't need to reply; I already knew the bomb must have gone off. And, as it turned out, it was lucky it had. Almost immediately, a fire alarm begin to ring loudly somewhere in the building.

As the Proteus goons made a run for it, I turned to the others. "Quick!" I told them. "Let's get out of here!" But would we be able to get out in time? I had seen enough movies about bombings to know that a fireball would be spreading rapidly through the building. We would only have a few moments to get clear . . .

I looked at Crystal and Luke. "Can you two use Teleport?" I asked, reasoning that it would be a lot quicker than trying to run.

Luke shook his head. "Proteus set up a Teleport-proof barrier, remember?"

I swore under my breath. We would have to make a run for it.

Atsuto

"This place has to have one of the stupidest defense systems I've ever seen. One little quirk and the building has to friggin' explode!" I yelled as I hung in the air, wings beating to keep me airborne. "Years of research, paperwork, and technology turned to dust in an instant! With this building gone, we'll have nothing to go on in order to change ourselves back to normal!" I spat bitterly, nailing the hat of a fleeing Proteus agent.

Alarms were blaring wildly now, blasting through my heightened senses. It was actually painful and I could have sworn that, if it had gotten any louder, my ears would have been bleeding. Red lights flashed around us as we ran, though I could barely tell at all, seeing as red was the only color visible to me with this mask on my face.

I searched around the walls, trying to find some easier exit out of here. Nobody can outrun an explosion like this one; it'd be too hard to dodge all the debris. My search became more frantic as the seconds passed and I could feel the heat from the fire rising up behind us as I jumped around pieces of ceiling that had begun to collapse. But the only things I could see that gave some idea that we weren't underground anymore were the windows we passed. "Windows!" I thought. "That's it!"

I stopped running and stood back from the wall. I spread my feet and bent my knees, bracing myself for the powerful Attack I was about to use. I stuck out my hands, forming a sort of triangle with my thumbs and index fingers. I narrowed my eyes and began to concentrate. A bright, orange-white energy began forming within the triangle with smaller orbs being sucked from what seemed to be thin air into a larger orb at the center, which continued to grow in size. When the orb was roughly the size of two fists, it stopped absorbing. A split second later, a large beam of white, outlined with orange, shot from the orb and into the wall.

There was a shattering explosion sound and a hole big enough for one person to walk through could be seen through the dust cloud that had sprung up from the sudden impact of the Attack. "That Hyper Beam was withering . . ." I began to pant from exhaustion, "Everyone get through there and, for the love of Ho-oh, you'd better make it quick!"

Alana

We all hurried to do as Atsuto said, jumping through the window to safety. Fortunately, we were only one storey up from ground level so we didn't have too far to jump. I watched as Ruby and Esther flew out, then waited for Atsuto to follow.

"Atsuto, hurry!" I shouted, seeing him standing in the windowframe. "Before the whole place blows!"

"I - I can't," he told me. "You guys go on without me."

"Oh no you don't!" I shot back. "We can't afford to lose anyone!"

"I'd gladly come if I could, but that Hyper Beam took too much out of me. Th - there's no way I can . . ."

"Yes, there is!" I retorted. I turned to Luke. "Are you able to use Teleport now?"

"Only one way to find out." Luke brought his hands together and focused all his Psychic energy on his fellow hybrid. Atsuto, his body surrounded by a purple glow, drifted out of the window to land directly at my feet.

I smiled at him. "Thanks," I said. "You saved our lives."

Atsuto smiled back. "It . . . it was nothing. Now, let's . . ." Before he could complete his sentence, he swooned suddenly. Clearly, the Hyper Beam he had just used had been a powerful one, powerful enough to leave him exhausted. But there was no time to rest now; we had to escape - and fast.

"C'mon, mate!" Matt was quickly at Atsuto's side. "I've got you!" Between them, he and James helped Atsuto to his feet and let him lean on them. I knew Atsuto would have preferred to fly with Ruby and Esther, but there was no way he could do that in his current condition.

"Run!" shouted Heather.

We ran, Matt and James supporting Atsuto. As we ran, we heard a deafening explosion behind us . . .

KABOOM!

We flung ourselves down and covered our eyes, waiting for the explosion to pass. As soon as it had and all was quiet again, I sat up and glanced round at my friends. "Are you guys OK?" I asked, brushing myself down.

"I'm all right," said Tanya, her white Dewgong fur blackened from the explosion.

"Me too," added Zeod.

Atsuto sat up. "I'm alive too, but barely," he panted. "Just give me time to . . . catch my breath."

So we had escaped from Proteus again, but at what price? With the labs destroyed, our chances of finding a way to get back to normal were slim. This, however, only made me more determined that this was not over yet; we would hunt down any surviving Proteus goons and make them pay for what they had done to us.

I looked back at the blazing ruins of Proteus's Headquarters, remembering everything I had been through there. It seemed so long ago since I arrived in Rustboro as a human trainer, only to be caught and taken to the place that was now being razed to the ground. I remembered it all: waking up to find myself turned into a half-Mightyena creature, the harsh training methods, everything. And I felt a strong sense of anger that we had been forced to suffer this.

But I also felt regret, regret at having been unable to take on Number 1 face to face, regret that the building and everything in was being destroyed so that there was now very little chance of us getting back to normal. I looked at the others as they too stood watching the destruction of our former prison. They were all silent and I could see tears brimming in Crystal's eyes.

"Is it gone?" Heather whispered.

"Guess so," replied Atsuto. "The only thing that puzzles me is why would they want to risk destroying everything?"

I shrugged. "Guess Number 1 wanted to make sure his secret never got out until his work was complete. And, if that meant killing us . . ." I left that last sentence unfinished. Then, I turned to look at everyone. "Let's go," I said. "Before someone comes."

So we were on the move again. But how long would we have to live like this?

Zeod

"Hold on! I got to go check for something!" I said as the dust cleared.

"Zeod, wait!" somebody yelled as I ran. But I wasn't sure who it was.

It didn't take long for me to find the lab. "Now, let's see . . ." I said as I dug through the rubble. Then, I found it, a small vial of the substance that was used to fuse us with the Pokemon. It was shattered, but there was still a bit left.

"Hey, guys!" I said on returning to the group. "I found something that might help us." I held up the broken vial. "It's not much, but it may help a little bit," I said as I put it in my shirt pocket.

Alana

I thought about the vial Zeod had retrieved. He was right; it wasn't much, certainly not enough for all of us. And besides I had a feeling that Proteus were not finished yet, that some of their number still lurked out there, biding their time. Only when we had dealt with them once and for all could we even think about trying to get back to normal.

"OK, what now?" asked Matt as we took shelter in a disused warehouse on the outskirts of Rustboro.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Try to get as far from here as possible . . ." I paused, thinking over the events of the last few days. "But, if anyone from Proteus is still around, they'll soon find out we escaped and, when that happens . . ."

". . . they'll try to catch us again," Heather concluded bitterly.

"So we'll need to be prepared," I went on. "If we get ambushed again, we'll need to be ready to fight until the end. I don't care what it takes; Proteus must be stopped!" I was shouting by the end of that little speech as all my frustrations, my hatred of the organisation that had made me what I was, boiled to the surface. If I ever got my hands on Number 1, he was a dead man.

First, though, we needed a plan; we couldn't just stay here and do nothing. Ruby turned to Zeod, who was standing nearest to her. "What was in that vial you retrieved?" she asked.

"Some of the stuff they used to fuse us," he replied. "It's not much, but I thought it might help us."

"If we can figure out how to use it," I added. "I don't know about any of you, but I'm not a geneticist. I don't know what effect that stuff will have. It could turn us back into humans or . . ."

". . . it could add another Pokemon fusion," finished Belinda.

I nodded. "Yes, or it could kill us. We need to take this to someone who knows how to deal with it, a Pokemon researcher. Who's the best one round here?"

They paused for a moment before Tanya came up with the answer. "Maybe . . . Professor Birch in Littleroot?" she suggested.

So we had our next destination; we would go to Littleroot and speak with Professor Birch. And, hopefully, he would be able to help us. But I was unable to shake the feeling that Proteus still lurked out there somewhere, that they were not about to give up on us.

We headed south from Rustboro, taking care not to be spotted by anyone. A lot of the time, this meant hiding out by day and travelling at night, which suited me fine. I was a Mightyena hybrid, after all. The night was in my blood; I felt like I was part of it and I was pretty sure Alex, being a Gengar hybrid, felt the same way. The moon and the stars seemed to call to us in ways no fully human person can ever experience.

"Y'know what?" I ventured one evening as I sat watching a colony of Zubats flying around. "I'm really gonna miss this when I'm human again . . ." I trailed off, recalling all that had happened to me in the past eighteen months, most of which I had spent as a prisoner of the organisation that made me what I was. I recalled how we had vowed to get revenge, realising as I did so that, once that objective was achieved, there would be no need for us to remain Pokemon hybrids.

"I know," said Alex. "Me too. Anyway, think Birch'll be able to help us?"

I shrugged. "We can only hope. But we can't try to change back until we know Proteus won't bother us again."

As if simply mentioning Proteus had tempted fate, my eyes were suddenly drawn to something moving in the shadows. I ran back to where the others were waiting. "Crystal! Zeod! Matt!" I shouted. "Everyone, there's someone waiting to ambush us!"

Zeod

"What is it?" I asked hastily. I had been trying to see if I could figure out what made the stuff in the vial. "Ambush?"

Then, I took off runnning. Without even looking where I was aiming, I shot a Flamethrower at the place Alana was looking at.

Alana

"Argh!"

A scream issued from the trees where Zeod had aimed his Flamethrower, swiftly followed by the appearance of a plump brown-haired man. He was wearing a lab coat and he seemed to be on fire. "Oh crap!" groaned Zeod, realising (as did I) that this was no Proteus agent. He seemed familiar, although I couldn't quite place where I'd seen him before.

"Matt, do something!" I shouted, turning in the direction of our Swampert hybrid.

Matt did not need telling twice. He used his Water Gun to put out the flames and the man soon stood blinking at us, his lab coat charred black. "Who . . . What are you?!" he gasped, his eyes wide with amazement. Mind you, I probably be amazed if I saw a bunch of Pokemon hybrids standing in front of me.

I elected to speak for the group. "I'm Alana," I said. "And these are my friends." I introduced everyone by name, before adding: "As for what we are, we're hybrids, part human and part Pokemon."

"And how did you get this way?" The man's tone conveyed genuine interest, as opposed to morbid curiosity.

I sighed. "It's a long story. But it all started with an organisation called Proteus . . ." Then, I told our story up until this moment. "We thought you might be out to ambush us," I explained. "That's why Zeod attacked you."

"That's all right, Alana; it's understandable you should be a little on edge after what you've been through." He looked at each of us in turn. "I'm Professor Birch, by the way. I'm out here studying the local Pokemon and . . ."

I interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. "If you're Professor Birch, maybe you could help us. Zeod, give him the vial you found."

Zeod did so. Professor Birch examined it for a moment, before asking us what it was.

"We think it might help us get back to normal," explained Ruby. "But we need you to examine it before we can be sure."

"I'll need to take it back to the lab," replied Birch, pocketing the vial. "But it shouldn't take too long to figure out what this is . . ." He paused and looked at us all. "Maybe you'd better come with me." We tensed; even if he wasn't a Proteus scientist, we'd all had enough of labs to last us a lifetime. "Come now, I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "I want to help you."

Zeod

"Is there any way I can help?" I offered once we were at the lab. "I may not be a bigshot scientist, but I made some blueprints that may help." But, then, I realised that Birch would probably want to concentrate, so I backed off.