A/N: Thanks for the reviews… if you did review. If you haven't, shame on you. No, not really. Either way, I hope you did enjoy the last chapter.

Oh, and Dragon Master Cohl, that last was in case you wondered about how I felt when writing that… and also setting the mood and everything. If you have the songs, playing them while reading really makes it a lot cooler. And also to illustrate how music tends to change my writing styles.

But, other than that, can't say much more. I've just saved my computer from the end-of-the-world! Which involved me uninstalling Internet Explorer. Somehow that screwed the whole thing over, so I had to use the System Restore function.

It's only half an hour to my bedtime, so in reality I shouldn't write; but I will. So… here goes the next chapter of Pokémon Go! Chapter 30, marking a month's worth of writing (not counting vacation and project days…)

She met them at the café after the phone call. Stepping under the parasol, she sat in the empty seat between Dave and Erynn. Coincidentally, it was the seat furthest from Ash, who was covered in a plethora of multi-coloured shopping bags.

Or not so coincidentally.

But Leon was surprisingly docile as he sat on the ground beside Michelle, though he did see fit to growl at Dave. Once.

Erynn greeted her enthusiastically, Ash less so. Dave nodded politely and shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you."

She took his proffered hand and shook it.

"Likewise. I'm Michelle, and you… must be Dave, aren't you?"

Dave nodded. Somehow she didn't seem as bad as Ash or Erynn had told him. Michelle stood up again, only after about half a minute of sitting down.

"Are we going yet, then?"

Ash paused, lost in thought. Erynn shrugged and hefted her bag onto her shoulders as Dave did the same.

"Wait… aren't you supposed to give your ominous warnings of doom…?"

Michelle shrugged.

"Sure… if you want me to…"

Ash covered her mouth before she could say any more.

"Don't. It might just kill us."

Michelle sighed as she pushed his hand away.

"Fine… if you say so…"

Looking at her curiously, Ash pulled his backpack up upon his back, reaching for the shopping bags. On his third attempt he managed to lift them off the ground.

"Ditto… a little help…"

Sighing, Ditto hopped off its trainer's shoulder, transforming into a Machop to help. Between the two of them, they managed to lift all the bags; while Ditto was a near-perfect replica of Machop, it didn't have any of his developed muscles.

"Heh… that's done it."

Erynn bit her lip in a moment of indecision, then walked over and helped to relieve them of their burden. Shrugging, Dave walked over to help as well.

"You know, this'd be a lot easier if we had a Steelix to travel on…"

Erynn shrugged; but then Michelle laughed.

"You're forgetting something, aren't you…?"

The three of them stared at her in incomprehension, but Ash's was all the deeper as he realized that hers was a laugh of true mirth.

Processing… complete.

Ash sighed as the empty shopping bags lay scattered all over the floor.

"That's done it, then…"

Dave nodded, sighing as he massaged his aching arms.

"Just about."

Erynn turned away from the PC; to Michelle.

"And I thought PC storage was only to store trainer items…?"

Michelle shook her head no.

"They can store practically anything you want to have stored; up to a certain extent, of course. Your storage space isn't unlimited, you know. Converting real life matter into electricity; data… isn't complicated, but requires huge amounts of energy."

Erynn could sense that this was turning into a scientific lecture. She wasn't wrong.

A/N: And take note! This data has a point later on in the story…!

"Taking it for granted that Emc2, even a small Pokémon like… Hoppip… actually is a huge amount of energy. When that mass is translated into energy, it requires a huge amount of power simply to contain it; Pokémon like Porygon, for example, make use of these energy surges to ride on currents through the WebWave."

A/N: The WebWave is basically a construct like our current Internet, only far more advanced in terms of accessibility, power, and of course the storage system.

Ash blinked, while Dave stared blankly, and Erynn looked at her feet.

"You… don't understand, do you…?"

The three of them nodded slowly. The points weren't as complicated as all that, but that such a concept had existed that they'd never thought about; they couldn't really comprehend the idea.

"Whatever…" Ash said, dumping the shopping bags into a nearby waste recycler, "we've got her clothes taken care of, and that's all that matters."

Michelle shook her head.

"The incident today… you remember that, don't you?"

Ash looked to Erynn, who nodded.

"You… saw us?"

Michelle made a small sound in affirmation, turning to face the three of them.

"I was with my folks at the time… though this is a big city; anything that affects Immaterion Corporations indirectly affects the rest of us too."

"What about it…?" Dave asked.

Michelle looked at the three of them intently, and then began.

"It helps to have a father who's actually a researcher at the Corporation… anyways, it turns out that a few months ago, a friend of his had managed to finish the prototype of a new, high-capacity processor…"

"Exactly how high-capacity are we talking, here…?" Dave asked, curious.

Michelle nodded.

"That was exactly it; they'd found a way to make a processor as small as those found in regular Pokéballs, only that it had enough power to store an entire storage box worth of Pokémon."

She broke off, looking out the window before continuing.

"You see, the reason why Pokéballs can't catch some of the more powerful Pokémon is because they simply don't have the capacity to store so much data… Great Balls, Ultra Balls… even that Master Ball that the Silph Corporation created… they're all based on that one same concept… but this ball…"

Ash nodded; that much he'd understood. Erynn shook her head, unsure.

"You mean… you can catch Pokémon with an even higher success rate than that of the Master Ball…?"

"No… not exactly…" Michelle sighed, removing a Pokéball of her own from her belt.

"There's nothing more than a one-hundred percent success rate, is there…?" she began tossing the ball up and down as she spoke, "it's merely a prototype, but… the ball was rumoured to be able to make PCs entirely obsolete… imagine being able to contain twenty Pokémon, in a single ball on your belt…"

She pocketed the ball. Dave spoke slowly, cautiously.

"But that's not all, is it…?"

Michelle smiled; a mixture of satisfaction and resignation.

"The people that took this technology; you've probably heard of them before…"

"You mean… the Tentor Fog…?"

Even as Dave spoke, Ash remembered their name from various news reports over the past few years; they weren't involved in anything like petty theft or the robbing of Pokémon, but when they pulled off any large heist, they'd always hit the headlines.

Ash had no doubt that, if the information they'd heard was released to the public, it'd probably be just as big a sensation. Michelle nodded.

"Yes… but no one has any idea what they plan to do with it. Either way… it's something to be worried about…"

Ash nodded, even as Dave looked at her curiously.

"How can you say all of this with such calm…? You seem almost… happy."

Michelle shrugged.

"Always expect the worst; you never get surprised that way. Besides, there really isn't any point in worrying, is there…?"

Dave and Erynn both nodded, while Ash looked a little more hesitant. It wasn't what she'd said, but how she'd said it.

"You seem completely out of character today…"

Michelle thought a moment, and then shook her head.

"No… I was out of character yesterday… today, I'm pretty much fine."

Ash nodded slowly, digesting what she'd said.

"So… what… you were in a bad mood yesterday…?"

She nodded, smiling.

"That's exactly it."

Ash nodded, and stood up. Then he fell down again as a Manectric tackled him out of nowhere. Michelle laughed again; it was getting to seem more normal now.

"Oh… not Leon, though. He's just that way."

"The Great North Road…" Ash breathed into the still, afternoon air.

Michelle was walking backwards, her face constantly turned toward the metal-and-glass skyline of Fluoride.

"What are you doing…?" Dave asked uncertainly.

Michelle turned to him, a trace of amusement on her face.

"This'll probably the last time I'll be seeing this place in a long time…"

Ash looked up from replying to an email from his parents; it was pretty hard to walk and type at the same time, anyway.

"Don't worry… we'll be back here sooner than you can say…" he thought for a moment, then decided against saying what he was about to say.

"Well; we won't be gone too long, anyway."

Erynn turned from her position at the front to face the rest of them; Espeon and Ditto were walking alongside her.

"You all okay back there…?"

Ash nodded, before tripping over a rock in an attempt to write an email, walk, and look at Erynn at the same time. He hastily got to his feet as two trainers walked past them. The tip of a black coat brushed his nose.

"Hey…" he said, struck by a thought.

The other three looked around at him.

"What if I told you I'd seen two members of the Tentor Fog…?"

There were incredulous looks all around.

"You mean… you have?"

Ash shrugged, shaking his head.

"Just checking."

He shook his head clear of any such thoughts as they continued their journey along the large, paved road. The trees which grew above their heads gave them a slight respite against the heat of the sun.

They were just another group on the road now; trainers were just leaving Fluoride after the Trainer's Square event. But it was merely a trickle of human traffic… contrary to popular belief; trainers didn't wait for other trainers to appear just so they could battle them.

Finishing the message and sending it, his movement came to an abrupt halt and he walked straight into Erynn, sending her sprawling to the ground. Ash could only feel thankful that it hadn't been Michelle he'd rammed into, or it'd have been Leon he'd have to deal with.

Erynn got up from the ground, dusting herself off.

"You know, I don't mind you following in my footsteps…" she said, brushing the sand out from under her jacket, "but next time, try waiting till I get out of them first."

The four trainers turned to face Fluoride one last time. They stood at the top of a steep slope leading down; stairs had been cut into the road at this juncture, with a strip of flat ground for cars built off to a side. Ash sighed as he turned away from the sight.

"In the distance; there…" he pointed.

Dave nodded.

"Aluminate… that's the next town, isn't it?"

Michelle shrugged as she turned her back on Fluoride as well.

"Well… I guess it's time, then…"

A/N: Chapter complete at last! Thanks for your reviews and all; hope you all didn't mind this chapter… it's background-building, at the very least.

Oh crud. No internet connection… I'm stuck until it comes back up again. Well, I'll get to work on my next chapter tomorrow, anyways…