Here we are: the last chapter for the year!

Chapter Twenty Two: This is Why I Failed Science

For all Alaska had heard about scientists and their magnificent laboratory's, she was highly disappointed.

Accepting what Mitchell had to say had been a relatively easy decision for Alaska: she was bored, had time to kill from the battle, and wanted to do something interesting after the disappointment that had been her failure to find the shadowed figure. Whilst she was reluctant to go anywhere with Mitchell, the name Bill still had some effect over her. Everyone in Kanto knew who Bill was: creator of the PC Storage System for Pokemon and a technical genius that helped all the professors with their inventions (and was a well known Pokeathlon competitor, but the scientific community generally ignored this fact about him.) He was getting old though, and had not made a public appearance in a while. Alaska was deeply intrigued to see how he knew of her and why he wanted to see her, and also to check on his sanity if he was working with Mitchell.

"Mr Bill is very very awesome!" Mitchell had explained eagerly as he escorted Alaska and Sandy towards the lone house. "He was very willing to answer all of my questions about PokeBalls and the storage system and that sort of thing and do you want to battle my later?"

"Maybe… possibly… we'll see…," Alaska replied in a forced smile, rather thrown by the sudden topic change and asking herself if Mitchell's Pokemon were as hyperactive as he was. They had approached the house, and it did not look impressive in the slightest: plain white paint, a red tiled roof, blue window frames, a series of potted plants and flowerbeds outside, nothing except for a satellite dish giving off any signs of being the home of an internationally known scientist.

And stepping in didn't change this image.

The home was basically one large open space that was practically empty. A kitchen was built into one corner, a bed in the other, a couch and television opposite and a table in the final one, complete with two computers, a filing cabinet and a large amount of paper. The middle had absolutely nothing asides from a large dirty rug, and the only things giving the pale blue wallpaper any life were a series of photos and trophies from his Pokeathlon days and science awards.

"This is it?" Alaska said, not realising it was aloud until Mitchell and Sandy both turned to her. "Well… I was expecting something a bit grander from a scientist… you know what I mean?" Mitchell and Sandy simply looked confused, but after a while Sandy began to nod.

"Yeah… I would expect there to be giant lasers or a catty super computer that provides funny one liners, like that one in that sponge show…," Sandy saw the amused look Alaska face and stopped talking. "Where is Bill anyway?"

"He was here when I left," Mitchell said in a highly defensive tone that seemed to shock Sandy, but Alaska had to deal with this tone in the past and simply sighed. Mitchell was always the first person to get blamed if something went wrong, and he would deny it even if he was covered in mud that also covered a previously sparkling white wall hours before. He had taken it upon himself to automatically defend everything someone said that was even slightly accusatory, and Alaska wondered how he would fend in battles with people that hadn't been paid to deal with him: most trainers would probably forfeit and leave to avoid the annoyance.

But just as Mitchell sat down on a ratty old sofa, a section of the wall suddenly slid open, revealing a sparkling white bathroom and a man moving forwards. Alaska was fairly impressed with the first sign of advanced technology in the scientist's house, yet was not impressed with the scientist himself: Bill was gaining in the years, with tufty grey eyebrows, a heavily wrinkled face and grey hair that was only at a rather wispy state. He was dressed in a blue tracksuit that hugged a mild pot belly and it looked as if it hadn't been washed in a while. Alaska was becoming fairly unimpressed, and hoped he wasn't just some old codger who wanted to show off his trophies to an aspiring trainer.

"Ah, you must be Alaska Acevedo, yes?" Bill said, smiling widely as he advanced forward, and Alaska simply nodded as she shaked his hand. "Splendid! I thought I recognised you when you walked past, but I'm afraid my body isn't as healthy as it use to be and I needed to rush to the lavatory, though it seems Mitchell was fast in getting you two here." Mitchell's sulk turned into a wide, goofy smile at the praise, and Alaska simply nodded, though was for the second time today thrown off by someone (well, something) mentioning her name: the voice knew about her blog, and now Bill stated he recognised her. Alaska was beginning to feel uneasy about this trip and wondered why the old scientist knew about her at all.

"You looked rather stunned my dear girl," Bill said, staring at her inquisitively as if she was a specimen. "Feeling ill? Mitchell be a good boy and fetch us some of those lovely juice boxes from before." Mitchell leapt to his feet and ran to his bag, searching through them to procure a series of orange coloured juice boxes.

"I'm fine," Alaska said, remembering the overly sugary drinks that were half the reason for Mitchell's uncontrollability. Bill nodded, but took one for himself and passed one over to Sandy, who seemed rather excited to have one. As they opened their juice boxes, Alaska decided it was best to get things over with. "Why did you invite me here? How exactly do you recognise me when we've never met?" Bill was rather taken aback by the assertiveness, but smiled as he slurped at the drink.

"My dear, everyone whose anyone in Kanto knows who you are," he said, and Alaska found herself not comforted in the slightest by this. Bill seemed to notice this and pulled his drink away from his mouth. "That incident at the museum has set alarm bells ringing in all the right places. Our world has been at peace for these past three years since those dreadful events at Sinnoh, and no one is looking forward to one mad scientist coming back and trying to ruin things. Mark Hansom was quick to spread the word about you and how you managed to prevent Gideon from taking anything, and I thought I would congratulate you in person for such a –,"

"Gideon got the fossils," Alaska said bluntly, and Bill froze in mid sentence. Alaska quickly explained what had happened at Mt Moon, and with each word Bill's jaw got lower and lower. When she reached the part of the exploding GolemBot, the juice box crashed to floor and sprayed its contents everywhere, causing the sleeping Frances to awake. Bill looked flustered when Alaska finished explaining, and quickly rushed towards his computer.

"Well, I must say I am very glad I brought you over," he said quickly, starting his computers up. As one of the screens flickered to life, Alaska found herself being taken aback: a website was open on Bill's computer, with a black background and white writing, and it could have been any old site except for the simple white banner that Alaska had roughly made in two minutes: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps.

It was her blog.

"Oh… yes… I should have been more up to date with your up to dates," Bill chuckled weakly, minimizing the blog and turning back to Alaska. "Well, at least everyone else will know about this now. I broke my phone the other day when I was trying something out, and my assistant is to busy to get me a new –,"

"You're all reading my blog?" Alaska said, her voice a combination of anger and confusion. Bill simply nodded, his expression showing that he wasn't expecting her to react this way.

"The elite people of Kanto don't know exactly what is going on all the time, and after we did some research into you following the museum, your blog came up and we all decided to follow it to make sure you were alright," Bill explained. Alaska was getting confused and moved towards a stool near the kitchen, collapsing and placing Frances on the bench. Sandy came forwards with a juice box that Alaska snatched without word, stabbing the straw in, imaging it was a knife going into Chloe, and drank the contents in one long gulp, everyone watching her in silence.

"It is very interesting to see that the 'elites' of our region have nothing better to than then read my blog," Alaska said at last, throwing the empty juice box aside. Sandy and Mitchell remained in silence, but Bill simply laughed as he walked over to Alaska, giving her a firm pat on the shoulder.

"It does make for very fine reading," he said with a smile, and Alaska simply nodded, becoming too confused to really focus on anything. She never thought her blog would become the centre of insight knowledge for everyone in the world, and it sort of made her promise to herself to stay away from all this seem selfish if all these people were relying on her to get the knowledge for them.

"So, let me just clarify things a bit," Alaska said. "Because I fought Gideon at Pewter Museum, everyone is reading my blog?"

"Correct."

"And everyone is afraid that Gideon is going to destroy the peace?"

"Right again."

"And as he has the fossils, that makes things worse?"

"Much worse." Alaska nodded and sighed, staring at Sandy or Frances for support, but nothing came her way.

"Are they going to do anything about Gideon?" Bill looked rather uneasy at this question, which Alaska took for an instant 'no'.

"Well… no one knows where he is," the scientist explained, and Alaska allowed a single laugh to escape her lips: these elites really weren't very good if they couldn't find the person threatening to destroy the world. She wondered how long before they dropped Alaska and her laptop in remote areas and expected feedback. "We all thought Gideon had died in an explosion when Red, Leaf and Blue stormed a base he was at the Sevii Islands. Only two Rocket grunts escaped alive, and we have been following them but they slipped and only recently came back on our radar."

"Wait a minute… Rocket grunts… does that mean Gideon worked for Team Rocket?" Alaska said, feeling her heart skipping a beat. Flashes suddenly filled her head: she had not been in Viridian at the time, but the news images of army tanks advancing towards the Pokemon League, Pokemon moves colliding and exploding, the flash of gun fire. Sandy and Mitchell gasped as well, and Bill's face sunk.

"You didn't know that either… ah… I really must call someone to explain things to you," Bill said. "I would myself, but I have a meeting soon, but I would if I could…," Bill paused and sighed, rubbing his head and drinking more of his juice box. "I am sorry you got involved in this Alaska. I hope you know that we are looking out for you and there is protection in place, but I personally would feel better if you had some firepower on you." Alaska was once again taken aback by the mention of protection, wondering if the shadowed figure had anything to do with it, but the mention of 'firepower' got her interested.

"What firepower?" Sandy asked curiously. "I don't see any weapons around here."

"They were saying how your really boring and don't have any cool gadgets!" Mitchell said in a high pitched, tattling tone, and gave Alaska a jeering smile. Bill simply laughed and walked towards the computer desk, grabbing a small black remote.

"My assistant Daisy doesn't like me getting involved with weapons at my age. She is afraid I might blow a hole in the roof… again," Bill said with a smile. "However, I thought I would keep a few things, just for when she isn't around." His smile widened as he pressed a button, and suddenly the house shook. Frances hid on Alaska's shoulder as a bit of floor panel opened up, and the dirty rug was retracted into the ground. Alaska, Sandy and Mitchell all ooohed and aaahed as an empty black rectangle appeared, but the whirring continued as items began to rise up.

Several metal tables consisting of many different levels were piled high with a variety of gadgets, ranging from objects the size of a cell phone to missile launchers and black boxes that undoubtedly were full of surprises. There was a giant touch computer that could fulfil Sandy's idea of a talking computer. There were slim machines with nozzles and many buttons, bulky machines that only had keyboards, and machines that resembled stereos and car batteries and television aerials on top of a large metal ball. Everything looked so high tech and fancy that Alaska felt her brain cells running away in embarrassment. She felt her eyes drawing towards a machine in the very center of the rising platform, with nothing else around: it resembled a silver lamppost, but instead of two light bulbs it had two holes leading into the machine, and there were a series of buttons and a small screen on the actual body.

"What are these things?" Alaska said, walking forwards and reaching out towards the lamp post looking machine. Bill slapped her hand away, his expression half serious and half smiling.

"I wouldn't touch that one if I was you," he said, and pulled Alaska towards one of the tables were Sandy and Mitchell had gathered, staring in awe at the various devices on display. Each one looked like it had cost millions of dollars to build and was more advanced than anything Alaska had ever owned or probably would own.

"You are going up against a scientist that has spent about five years off the radar, and what he did during that time no one knows," Bill explained as he grabbed one of the metal boxes and pressed a button, causing it to open up. "It is clear that he can teleport, so he will undoubtedly have other weapons." Bill pulled what looked like a silver rocket launcher out of the box, though it was much smaller, but it still caused Alaska's jaws dropped in surprise.

"This does not have any bullets or explosives in it," Bill explained, "but it does have things that will save you in a safe manner: smoke bombs, stun guns, mild electric shocks, flares. It even has a feature that will prevent certain Pokemon moves from hitting you and another that will fire a sticky substance to trap someone."

"Oh my god, this is so awesome!" Sandy said excitedly, looking at some of the attachments that were inside the box. "I wasn't even allowed a water gun as a child!" She reached out to grab something, but Bill beat her hands away and closed the box, looking serious. Alaska felt the fun and excitement she shared with Sandy getting sucked away, feeling a serious discussion coming on.

"This is not a toy: this is a weapon to be used only when necessary," the scientist explained. He was so focused on them he didn't notice a bored Mitchell wandering off to examine the other machines. "I must make sure that this weapon is going into the right hands, so I would like you to test it quickly." Alaska hated having to earn respect: it was so tedious and whenever she did something wrong, she would get that irritating judging I expected better from you look. But the gun was shiny and obviously packed a punch, and Alaska looked forward to being able to blow something up in Chloe's face and claim she was coming at her with a knife.

"Just each of you send a Pokemon out over there and than move backwards," Bill explained, and he himself threw a PokeBall over. An Eevee formed near the front door, and as Sandy made an 'awwww' sound, Alaska felt her heart melt a bit at the sign of the adorable Normal type. She looked at Frances, but saw she was hiding behind the toaster, and sent Paige out instead, knowing having things fired at her wouldn't scare her. Butterfree joined the three, and they got around introducing each other. Alaska noted Mitchell eyeing up the lamp post machine and was going to say something, but Bill passed the gun forwards and her attention shot back to that. It was so small to have the power and abilities it had, much like some of the Pokemon Alaska had met. She grabbed the gun and turned towards her Pokemon, Paige and Butterfree looking rather stunned, though Bill's Eevee must get shot at regularly as she didn't flinch.

"Don't hurt them!" Sandy whispered.

"Don't worry, this setting we are going to try first is entirely harmless," Bill said, and had Alaska hold the gun up as if she was trying to shoot someone, and the scientist turned the nozzle so it was at a certain setting. "This is simply going to show how it can deflect simple moves or those used from weak Pokemon. The Pokemon will attack, and you pull the trigger and hold it at the attack, alright?"

"I think so," Alaska said, though hoped she didn't misfire and end up getting hit with a Twister. "Paige, use Twister!" Paige seemed rather confused by what was going on, but nodded and began spinning around. Bill raced forwards to put paperweights on his work as Eevee and Butterfree moved away. Alaska stood poised and ready, hoping things would work.

"PIDGEEEEE!" Paige cried, and the Twister flew towards her. Sandy squealed as Alaska tensed up and pulled the trigger. She felt the gun shudder and watched through half closed eyes as a wavy but clear barrier rose up. It stretched to the size of about five dinner plates, and the Twister crashed into it. Alaska thought she was going to fly backwards, but the barrier caused the attack to break apart, no longer harmful.

"WOOO!" Alaska cried, letting go of the trigger and letting the barrier fall away. Sandy was clapping and cheering, and Bill smiled widely as he walked back over to him. "That actually felt pretty cool to deflect an attack myself… without using brownies." This seemed to confuse Bill and Sandy, but they ignored it as the success of the first trial swept through them.

"Can I have a turn?" Sandy asked pleadingly.

"Alaska will have a try with the other two Pokemon, than it will be yours," Bill said, and Sandy nodded and moved away. Alaska wasn't sure if she would even let Sandy have a turn, this weapon far too interesting and fun. She raised it up as Eevee walked forwards, and was waiting for Bill to command an attack when they all heard it: a loud beeping coming behind. Every head turned instinctively to the source of the noise, and they gasped as they saw Mitchell pressing several buttons on the lamp post machine.

"MITCHELL, NO!" Bill screamed, and the little boy turned around.

"I'm not doing anything wrong, just touching!" He said grouchily, but he didn't seem to notice what everyone else could see: two balls of light forming where the lights should be, causing all other items in the house to flicker and fizz.

"DUCK!" Bill screamed, and as the elderly man jumped to the floor, Alaska knew it was bad. She threw the gun into the box and shoved Sandy to the floor before rolling aside herself. Mitchell suddenly screamed as he realised what was happening, but as Alaska looked up, she saw it was too late as bolts suddenly exploded from the light. There was no where to hide to avoid them, and Alaska simply froze, hoping the bolts wouldn't hit her. Paige, Butterfree and Eevee were crying out, and Alaska made the mistake of looking up.

The bolt struck her directly in the head, and Alaska let out a scream as she experienced a pain she had never felt before. It felt as if she was being torn from her body, and all Alaska could see was a strange mix of black and white lights flickering around her. For a moment she felt her scream stop, possibly blacking out from the pain, but a moment later she was on the floor, the pain stopped but still feeling confused. She looked around and saw Sandy and Butterfree, but couldn't see Paige anywhere.

"Is everyone alright?" Alaska said, and got to her feet. Well… she thought she had gotten to her feet, yet the ground seemed to be a lot closer than it had been before. "Has that stupid machine turned me into a toddler?" Butterfree was moving in front of her, giving her a very strange, judging look.

"Alaska?" She said, and Alaska nearly jumped out of her skin: was it just her, or had Butterfree just spoken English… in Sandy's voice? Alaska raised a hand to prod her, to check if things were real, but than she screamed as she looked down and saw she didn't have hands.

She had wings.

Instinctively Alaska began looking around for something reflective, and then remembered the toaster Frances was hiding behind. She leapt up their, her new wings flailing, and scuttled across the surface with her talons. Alaska saw a figure stir alongside, and screamed once again when she saw herself moving upwards, rubbing her head.

"No way, this cannot be happening…," Alaska said, and she stared at the toaster: brown and cream feathers, pink talons, peak, beady black eyes, long yellow and pink plumage.

Alaska had somehow turned into Paige. She stared at the toaster for a minute, not sure quite what to say or do, but managed to produce two words she never thought she'd hear her starter say.

"Oh balls."

Possibly not the cliffhanger many of you were expecting, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Thanks to everyone who has read this throughout the year and those fans who have offered their take on each chapter and given me some helpful advice. I hope you continue to enjoy this series next year! It will be back late December/early January, and I hope to have gotten to the end of the Vermilion Arc by the end of January, where there will be new Pokemon, more of the mysteries revealed, and more one liners that I hope I'm not the only one who finds amusing :P Thanks once again and see you all next year (unless you read my other work, than see you very soon :P)