p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Chapter 2: The beginning/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It was half past noon when Dee finally arrived at her destination. She would have arrived sooner but the labs computers weren't designed for massive emails and she was quite possibly the biggest download in history. The computers in the lab she had been mad in connected directly to satellites above easily. The entire sending process was just a matter of bouncing off the satellite below and being beamed to a satellite dish./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Her destination was Palm City, far off to the east of Johto and nowhere near any deserts. Palm City itself was actually just a giant tourist attraction. It's biggest moneymaker being the huge mall and a market close buy it. The warm weather almost year round and near constant waves kept the beach near the market bustling all year. It was also a haven to water type pokemon and because of a power plant nearby, a few electric types as well. All and all it was a very pleasant place with the sun to keep tourist warm and cool ocean breezes to help keep things cool as well./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Around the edge of the city was the Palm City radio station, sporting a large 20-foot satellite dish on the top. The area , luckily, the area rarely saw visitors, making Dee's flashy entrance much less harder to notice. Bright light surrounded the dish as Dee transported to it and sent crackling, green sparks on energy when she landed as a ball of pure energy that arched from the dish and landed on the rooftop with enough force to send debris that had collected over the years far away./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The porygon didn't waste any time getting to work. The items she carried with her had already been stored inside of her for travel but she brought one out just to have a look at it. She stared hard at the ground and her eyes flashed yellow briefly. A glowing yellow line appeared on the ground moments later, splitting and lifting from the ground with the edges attached to the bottom to form a rectangle. That then split and traveled across the ground to form a long cube of sorts, roughly the size of the pokedex she was given. Another flash from her eyes and the cube pulsed, with green energy, quickly filling out details and taking shape as she poured the digital information of the 'dex into it. Another flash and the data became real, leaving her with the exact pokedex that she was given to her before./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The 'dex itself resembled the ones in the Johto region, with a flip top and functioning when held vertically. the only real difference being that this one was blue and black instead of red. She opened it with a tap of her beak on the button in the center and navigated through some of the menus that flashed on the screen the moment the top lifted./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A minute later she found what she needed, the part of the special pokedex that let her choose forms. Unfortunately she only had her normal form to choose from and that of a plusle. It being chosen due to them being native where she was at and there was only so much preparation Leah could do on such sort notice. She selected the plusle option and set the special programming in action. Like the pokedex a line formed under her and split, lifting up to form a cube made up of dozens of smaller ones. Her body vanished into energy before shrinking in on itself and growing ears and paws and other plusle parts. The cube around her vanished when she finished and she stretched, exploring her first time having real limbs./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A noise from behind her broke her from examining herself. The door that lead to the roof she was on didn't look locked and she could hear voices from behind it. She picked up the pokedex and looked for an exit, spying the stairs attached to the building not a moment later. She made it to the stairs and was already two flights down before the door she left opened./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"She reached the bottom easily enough and headed out to the street, almost overwhelmed by the crowd of people she walked into. She was still getting used to having limbs and being surrounded by people only added to the experiences she was busy trying to process. She ignored the stares of those passing by wondering why a plusle was carrying a pokedex and headed towards the store as directed./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Back in the only super pokemart in Palm City, Jake worked hard at helping customers, suggesting items to who ever needed help and having no clue that a porygon/plusle needed to see him. He worked there for a while but if it bothered him he never showed it. He was almost six feet, taller at least than most of his friends and one of the 'natives' too which meant he had darker tanned skin than most of the tourist he got to see through the shop doors. He sported he usual 'mart uniform, plain green shirt with a white outline of a pokeball on the back and khakis./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Another young customer eventually came by while Jake was behind the register and, after taking the kid's cash, he brought out the four pokeballs asked for and offered a friendly, "Thank you for coming!" This had to have been Jake's five hundredth time saying that today but despite sounding like a broken record, Jake never really got tired of it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"While Jake was handling another customer Molina, one of the managers, came up to him and said, "Jake, need yo outside to handle some of the carts that were left out."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake frowned while walking around the work counter, "What? What about the other cart pushers?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Well they called in... probably because of the festival starting soon but I don't really handle the phones and it's their business really. Just go outside for a few minutes, get all the carts together and then you can come back in."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Well, how many cart pushers do we have?" Jake asked./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""One."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake folded his hands behind his head and formed an O with his mouth but didn't say a word. The super pokemarts were bigger than the normal small 'mart in most towns, sporting two stories and even having a parking lot since they stocked more than just a few items for passing trainers. All the extra hustle and bustle meant more clean up though and with Jake being the only male around.../span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He had made it all the way to building entrance before he remembered the other worker scheduled today and called out to her, "Hey Mo, what about Mark? He works today right?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Molina pulled out her notepad and thumbed through a few pages, "He's on lunch Jake, now stop stalling and get out there!" worked. He could feel his heart racing quickly and things slowed down around him. So he noticed every detail of the man he it with the shopping cart reach into his jacket again./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He finally realized that his arm and turned around to sprint away just as he heard something hit the ground. With the woman in front of him and running faster in high heels than most women could he was sure she would be safe. The woman ran around the carts and cars ahead and he followed, throwing a look behind him just in time to see a stream of water soaring towards him. He didn't have enough time to yell out before the water struck him and knocked his back against a side view mirror painfully. He crumpled to the ground on his back and groaned, unable to get up though the woman he had just saved came back to help him seconds later./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Hey! Come on we have to go!" She almost screamed at him./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He shook his head, even moving his legs hurt, he wasn't going anywhere soon. He saw something blue land on the car he just slammed into, everything looking blurry thanks to his glasses being lost after he fell./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Butch, get that purse and let's go!" He heard the man yell and the blue object he saw earlier hopped down, revealing itself as a totodile. He normally found them cute but the teeth it was baring at him looked nothing sort of scary./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The blue critter jumped high into the air, lunging for the purse with all the intention ripping it from the woman's grasp./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It never made it though as a bolt of electricity flashed out and slammed into the totodile. He heard a scream from his companion and he gasped as well as all he saw was a blue blur being hit by something bright and being flung away and shatter someone's windshield on their truck. with a large crackling noise accompanying it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Seconds later Butch's owner appeared but stiffened as he was hit by static. His eyes went wide and he made strangled noises before hitting the ground hard in front of Jake. The person Jake was with helped him up and he managed to do so without too much difficulty, his back still sore but not keeping him from being able to stand./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The woman spoke up first, "Hey are you okay..."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Jake, my name's Jake. I'm fine but what about you? Did they hurt you or anything?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"She shook her head and opened her purse, pulling out what looked like a black pokeball with red and yellow rings on it. While she inspected the ball for damage Jake finally relaxed, until he noticed that he still couldn't see anything other than a blur. He knelt on the ground quickly and found his glasses under the car next to him and put them with shaky hands. It wasn't until he put his glasses on that he noticed that he was completely soaked thanks to the water attack he took head on earlier. He groaned and reach for his phone to check on it while the woman he was with gave a relieved sigh behind him and looked around./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Who saved us?" she asked, looking confused and pulling out a card from her purse. "Jake, here's my card. Call me sometime when you can. I can't stay right now, got to go!" She shoved the card into Jake's hand. With that, the woman who he just got done sort of rescuing dashed over to the man she kicked before, stepped on his back and then hopped into her car. Seconds later she drove off and left Jake with two knocked out men and an injured totodile./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake stood in place for almost a minute, too shocked by everything that happened to do much more than blink and breath. He got his cellphone out though soon enough and called for the cops while looking at the card he was given. He barely registered what he was saying to the dispatcher over the phone, responding with short answers while inspecting the card. It had the words "Sarah Thorne" on the top right in bold letters with the words "pokemon groomer". A smiling picture of a pikachu on the left and a work phone number on the bottom right was all that was left./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He almost called the number then but a groan from the ground snapped him back to reality. He never did find out who rescued him but a quick scan of the parking lot showed no one coming forward. He suddenly felt pretty silly standing around doing nothing so he walked back towards the doors of the pokemart. He got greeted instantly by Molina. He quickly explained what happened and even asked if he could go home early because of his back. Something that got declined and instead he was just led to a chair where he could sit down, trailing water everywhere he went. His back did hurt though now it didn't seem as bad as before so he didn't bother pressing the issue. He really just tried to used it as an excuse to go home early and goof off./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A few minutes later the manager of the store met up with him to see if he was doing fine, explaining that he should wait for the cops to come at least before trying to go anywhere, unless he was just in too much pain. Jake declined and the manager left it at that, going outside to go meet up with the downed thugs. A few of his other coworkers gathered around him, mostly just concerned too but he assured them he was okay and one even brought him a towel. before they went back too their post./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Five minutes passed before Jake realized that he was alone and didn't have any work to do until the police arrived so he pulled out the card he was given and his cellphone and dialed Sarah's work number./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A few rings later he got greeted by a cheery, "Hello!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake didn't expect Sarah to get home so fast! He sat back against the chair he was in and rubbed his head, "Wow, hey Sar-"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Sorry I'm not in right, small emergency so taking a few days off. Please leave a message for any future appointments and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Bye!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"There was silence for a few moments before the beep signaling for Jake to leave a message sounded out. Jake sighed, mentally kicking himself for thinking she would already be at her job. "Hey Sarah, it's Jake, the guy you met in the parking lot?" he felt dumb almost immediately. He hated leaving massages since he never knew what to say. He gave out his phone number and promised to call later and hung up, not really expecting to get further than that. Sarah was cute but she looked like she was in her thirties or so, a bit out of his range, he figured most people wouldn't want to chat too much with someone over ten years younger than themselves./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"With that done Jake had only to wait for the cops, which only took another ten minutes. A few cop cars pulled up outside and took the men away while another handled the totodile. Once of the cops actually came inside with the store manager trailing behind./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The cop looks 'typical', with a generic mustache and a bored expression that spoke volumes about how much he really cared about what was going on. Jake spent most of his time staring at the man's mustache while giving out details of what happened and Sarah's name to the cop whose name Jake didn't bother to notice./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"By the time the questioning ended Jake felt like he knew more about what the cop ate just by staring at crumbs caught in the poor guy's 'stache then anything else about the man. With the questioning done and the thugs taken away the cop tipped his hat and left. It was then that he was finally able to go home, something that would have been wonderful had it been a little earlier. Jake's shift at work ended twenty minutes ago so everything felt a bit like a waste and all he got out of it was a backache. He stretched and put his work stuff up, heading out the door where he got bombarded by a news crew of two people!/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Jake!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A mic suddenly appeared in front of his face and he leaned back to avoid it, knocking his head against the glass door. "Ow! Yes that's me. What's going on?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The woman completely ignored him and turned to face the camera man she brought with her, "This is Lanna Riley from Channel 2 news, bringing you the news before anyone else! I'm here with Jake who heroically saved a girl just moments ago from three thugs with his bare hands. Jake, what crossed your mind when you faced those dangerous men down. I heard one had a knife..."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"the mic appeared in front of Jake again and he groaned. Lanna established herself as one of the most annoying reporter in the history of humanity a few years ago. She excelled at getting to scenes before anyone else and completely blowing things out of proportion. Everything about her was larger than life, from her bright blue suit that no reporter would ever wear to her horned rimmed glasses that seemed ready to have holes burned through the lenses from how hard Lanna was staring expectantly at Jake. If he had to guess, Lanna would probably be the same age as Sarah, though her tied up brown hair that was almost constantly in a bun along with the rest of her ideas of fashion made her anything but appealing. Jake just nodded to her and gave a nervous grin before slowly edging away from her./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Lanna frowned and cut Jake off, pushing the mic into his face and seemed to have the intention of shoving it up his nose, "No need to be shy Jake, you're a hero!" she said and threw a dazzling smile at the camera man, getting a thumbs up from him./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It took almost twenty agonizing minutes before Jake finished with Lanna. Lana was also known for being very thorough. By tomorrow the story would probably be about how he took down five men using karate and throwing lightning out of his hands. Fortunately no one really took the channel 2 news seriously but Jake didn't think his social life would improve much with this kind of publicity./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake made it to his car and drove home, getting there a full hour after his normal time with no warning to his mother who he knew would be furious about him not keeping her up to date. The joys of having an overprotective parent were something Jake was pretty sure he could live without but there was no helping it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"By the time he reached the door he resigned himself to whatever fate his mom had in store for him. He fished his keys out of his pocket and put it in the keyhole opening the door and bracing himself for the extreme chewing out he was bound to get./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"But there was no one home./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"His house was pretty simple. The hallway started at the front door and led to the living room with the kitchen attached to the living room out of sight. His room and everyone else branched off from the main hallway right before the living room. A light was on in the living room thanks to a lamp on a table but it was the only light on in the entire house./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake was no stranger to his parents taking his siblings and going out to school functions or dinner with his other siblings so he was more confused than worried. He tried to remember if his mom or dad slipped any warning about going out to eat or anything interesting but he couldn't recall them saying much today./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He shrugged after a while, knowing they'd probably pop up later and headed over to his room and almost opened his door until he noticed a post-it-note on his door./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emHey honey! I knew you'd forget so I wrote this down. Your dad and I decide to go out tonight so we won't be home until late. Your brother and sister will be at Jenna's house. so you have the house to yourself./em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emLove,/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emMom/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emTry and stay out of trouble dear./em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake slapped his forehead. He had completely forgotten his Mom had told him that she was going out with dad. Shaking his head he took the note off the door. and walked inside./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"Jaaaaaaaaaake!"/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake heard the voice loudly, though only in his head. He looked down at his feet expectantly, replying with his thoughts ,"Hey kitty, where are you?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna came up from behind him, rubbing on the sides of his legs slowly as she came by. She was Jake's espeon that he met almost six years ago though she was an eevee then. He found her back in an ally and it took all the convincing powers he had to convince his parents to let him keep her. Her evolution into an espeon was completely accidental, the original plan being for her to evolve into a umbreon but Jake found that he like her better like this. The fact that he could talk to his pokemon, or rather, think to it was a nice bonus that he quickly got attached to. Luna had a knack for sensing what Jake was thinking about and interrupting it, which she was exhibiting now.../span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"Jake, before you become lost in thought I thought you should know that you have a visitor waiting for you in the living room./em/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"What?"/em/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;" Jake thought, /span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"But how did they get inside? You didn't open the door for them did you?"/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna sounded hurt, "Jake, you know I would never let anyone come in the house if thought they were any threat. I didn't sense any ill will towards you and she really seemed to want to meet you."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake looked puzzled as walked from the hallway with Luna trailing behind him. Going into the living room he flipped a light switch and there, standing on the coffee table in the center of the living room was a very serious looking plusle. She was holding a piece of paper and a photograph in both of its paws and lying in front of it was obviously a glanced at Luna and spoke to her for a brief second before looking back at Jake expectantly./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna hesitated, seeming confused by what she heard but she relayed everything to Jake's mind anyway,/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em "She said her name is Dee and that you're late coming home. She also has a message for you."/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"*****/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Well this chapter came out a bit later than I hoped but, life happens! Hope you guys are enjoying things so far. Comments are still welcome as I'm still trying to improve my writing skills./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It was half past noon when Dee finally arrived at her destination. She would have arrived sooner but the labs computers weren't designed for massive emails and she was quite possibly the biggest download in history. The computers in the lab she had been mad in connected directly to satellites above easily. The entire sending process was just a matter of bouncing off the satellite below and being beamed to a satellite dish./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Her destination was Palm City, far off to the east of Johto and nowhere near any deserts. Palm City itself was actually just a giant tourist attraction. It's biggest moneymaker being the huge mall and a market close buy it. The warm weather almost year round and near constant waves kept the beach near the market bustling all year. It was also a haven to water type pokemon and because of a power plant nearby, a few electric types as well. All and all it was a very pleasant place with the sun to keep tourist warm and cool ocean breezes to help keep things cool as well./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Around the edge of the city was the Palm City radio station, sporting a large 20-foot satellite dish on the top. The area , luckily, the area rarely saw visitors, making Dee's flashy entrance much less harder to notice. Bright light surrounded the dish as Dee transported to it and sent crackling, green sparks on energy when she landed as a ball of pure energy that arched from the dish and landed on the rooftop with enough force to send debris that had collected over the years far away./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The porygon didn't waste any time getting to work. The items she carried with her had already been stored inside of her for travel but she brought one out just to have a look at it. She stared hard at the ground and her eyes flashed yellow briefly. A glowing yellow line appeared on the ground moments later, splitting and lifting from the ground with the edges attached to the bottom to form a rectangle. That then split and traveled across the ground to form a long cube of sorts, roughly the size of the pokedex she was given. Another flash from her eyes and the cube pulsed, with green energy, quickly filling out details and taking shape as she poured the digital information of the 'dex into it. Another flash and the data became real, leaving her with the exact pokedex that she was given to her before./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The 'dex itself resembled the ones in the Johto region, with a flip top and functioning when held vertically. the only real difference being that this one was blue and black instead of red. She opened it with a tap of her beak on the button in the center and navigated through some of the menus that flashed on the screen the moment the top lifted./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A minute later she found what she needed, the part of the special pokedex that let her choose forms. Unfortunately she only had her normal form to choose from and that of a plusle. It being chosen due to them being native where she was at and there was only so much preparation Leah could do on such sort notice. She selected the plusle option and set the special programming in action. Like the pokedex a line formed under her and split, lifting up to form a cube made up of dozens of smaller ones. Her body vanished into energy before shrinking in on itself and growing ears and paws and other plusle parts. The cube around her vanished when she finished and she stretched, exploring her first time having real limbs./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A noise from behind her broke her from examining herself. The door that lead to the roof she was on didn't look locked and she could hear voices from behind it. She picked up the pokedex and looked for an exit, spying the stairs attached to the building not a moment later. She made it to the stairs and was already two flights down before the door she left opened./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"She reached the bottom easily enough and headed out to the street, almost overwhelmed by the crowd of people she walked into. She was still getting used to having limbs and being surrounded by people only added to the experiences she was busy trying to process. She ignored the stares of those passing by wondering why a plusle was carrying a pokedex and headed towards the store as directed./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Back in the only super pokemart in Palm City, Jake worked hard at helping customers, suggesting items to who ever needed help and having no clue that a porygon/plusle needed to see him. He worked there for a while but if it bothered him he never showed it. He was almost six feet, taller at least than most of his friends and one of the 'natives' too which meant he had darker tanned skin than most of the tourist he got to see through the shop doors. He sported he usual 'mart uniform, plain green shirt with a white outline of a pokeball on the back and khakis./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Another young customer eventually came by while Jake was behind the register and, after taking the kid's cash, he brought out the four pokeballs asked for and offered a friendly, "Thank you for coming!" This had to have been Jake's five hundredth time saying that today but despite sounding like a broken record, Jake never really got tired of it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"While Jake was handling another customer Molina, one of the managers, came up to him and said, "Jake, need yo outside to handle some of the carts that were left out."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake frowned while walking around the work counter, "What? What about the other cart pushers?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Well they called in... probably because of the festival starting soon but I don't really handle the phones and it's their business really. Just go outside for a few minutes, get all the carts together and then you can come back in."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Well, how many cart pushers do we have?" Jake asked./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""One."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake folded his hands behind his head and formed an O with his mouth but didn't say a word. The super pokemarts were bigger than the normal small 'mart in most towns, sporting two stories and even having a parking lot since they stocked more than just a few items for passing trainers. All the extra hustle and bustle meant more clean up though and with Jake being the only male around.../span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He had made it all the way to building entrance before he remembered the other worker scheduled today and called out to her, "Hey Mo, what about Mark? He works today right?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Molina pulled out her notepad and thumbed through a few pages, "He's on lunch Jake, now stop stalling and get out there!" worked. He could feel his heart racing quickly and things slowed down around him. So he noticed every detail of the man he it with the shopping cart reach into his jacket again./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He finally realized that his arm and turned around to sprint away just as he heard something hit the ground. With the woman in front of him and running faster in high heels than most women could he was sure she would be safe. The woman ran around the carts and cars ahead and he followed, throwing a look behind him just in time to see a stream of water soaring towards him. He didn't have enough time to yell out before the water struck him and knocked his back against a side view mirror painfully. He crumpled to the ground on his back and groaned, unable to get up though the woman he had just saved came back to help him seconds later./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Hey! Come on we have to go!" She almost screamed at him./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He shook his head, even moving his legs hurt, he wasn't going anywhere soon. He saw something blue land on the car he just slammed into, everything looking blurry thanks to his glasses being lost after he fell./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Butch, get that purse and let's go!" He heard the man yell and the blue object he saw earlier hopped down, revealing itself as a totodile. He normally found them cute but the teeth it was baring at him looked nothing sort of scary./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The blue critter jumped high into the air, lunging for the purse with all the intention ripping it from the woman's grasp./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It never made it though as a bolt of electricity flashed out and slammed into the totodile. He heard a scream from his companion and he gasped as well as all he saw was a blue blur being hit by something bright and being flung away and shatter someone's windshield on their truck. with a large crackling noise accompanying it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Seconds later Butch's owner appeared but stiffened as he was hit by static. His eyes went wide and he made strangled noises before hitting the ground hard in front of Jake. The person Jake was with helped him up and he managed to do so without too much difficulty, his back still sore but not keeping him from being able to stand./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The woman spoke up first, "Hey are you okay..."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Jake, my name's Jake. I'm fine but what about you? Did they hurt you or anything?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"She shook her head and opened her purse, pulling out what looked like a black pokeball with red and yellow rings on it. While she inspected the ball for damage Jake finally relaxed, until he noticed that he still couldn't see anything other than a blur. He knelt on the ground quickly and found his glasses under the car next to him and put them with shaky hands. It wasn't until he put his glasses on that he noticed that he was completely soaked thanks to the water attack he took head on earlier. He groaned and reach for his phone to check on it while the woman he was with gave a relieved sigh behind him and looked around./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Who saved us?" she asked, looking confused and pulling out a card from her purse. "Jake, here's my card. Call me sometime when you can. I can't stay right now, got to go!" She shoved the card into Jake's hand. With that, the woman who he just got done sort of rescuing dashed over to the man she kicked before, stepped on his back and then hopped into her car. Seconds later she drove off and left Jake with two knocked out men and an injured totodile./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake stood in place for almost a minute, too shocked by everything that happened to do much more than blink and breath. He got his cellphone out though soon enough and called for the cops while looking at the card he was given. He barely registered what he was saying to the dispatcher over the phone, responding with short answers while inspecting the card. It had the words "Sarah Thorne" on the top right in bold letters with the words "pokemon groomer". A smiling picture of a pikachu on the left and a work phone number on the bottom right was all that was left./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He almost called the number then but a groan from the ground snapped him back to reality. He never did find out who rescued him but a quick scan of the parking lot showed no one coming forward. He suddenly felt pretty silly standing around doing nothing so he walked back towards the doors of the pokemart. He got greeted instantly by Molina. He quickly explained what happened and even asked if he could go home early because of his back. Something that got declined and instead he was just led to a chair where he could sit down, trailing water everywhere he went. His back did hurt though now it didn't seem as bad as before so he didn't bother pressing the issue. He really just tried to used it as an excuse to go home early and goof off./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A few minutes later the manager of the store met up with him to see if he was doing fine, explaining that he should wait for the cops to come at least before trying to go anywhere, unless he was just in too much pain. Jake declined and the manager left it at that, going outside to go meet up with the downed thugs. A few of his other coworkers gathered around him, mostly just concerned too but he assured them he was okay and one even brought him a towel. before they went back too their post./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Five minutes passed before Jake realized that he was alone and didn't have any work to do until the police arrived so he pulled out the card he was given and his cellphone and dialed Sarah's work number./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A few rings later he got greeted by a cheery, "Hello!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake didn't expect Sarah to get home so fast! He sat back against the chair he was in and rubbed his head, "Wow, hey Sar-"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Sorry I'm not in right, small emergency so taking a few days off. Please leave a message for any future appointments and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Bye!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"There was silence for a few moments before the beep signaling for Jake to leave a message sounded out. Jake sighed, mentally kicking himself for thinking she would already be at her job. "Hey Sarah, it's Jake, the guy you met in the parking lot?" he felt dumb almost immediately. He hated leaving massages since he never knew what to say. He gave out his phone number and promised to call later and hung up, not really expecting to get further than that. Sarah was cute but she looked like she was in her thirties or so, a bit out of his range, he figured most people wouldn't want to chat too much with someone over ten years younger than themselves./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"With that done Jake had only to wait for the cops, which only took another ten minutes. A few cop cars pulled up outside and took the men away while another handled the totodile. Once of the cops actually came inside with the store manager trailing behind./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The cop looks 'typical', with a generic mustache and a bored expression that spoke volumes about how much he really cared about what was going on. Jake spent most of his time staring at the man's mustache while giving out details of what happened and Sarah's name to the cop whose name Jake didn't bother to notice./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"By the time the questioning ended Jake felt like he knew more about what the cop ate just by staring at crumbs caught in the poor guy's 'stache then anything else about the man. With the questioning done and the thugs taken away the cop tipped his hat and left. It was then that he was finally able to go home, something that would have been wonderful had it been a little earlier. Jake's shift at work ended twenty minutes ago so everything felt a bit like a waste and all he got out of it was a backache. He stretched and put his work stuff up, heading out the door where he got bombarded by a news crew of two people!/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""Jake!"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"A mic suddenly appeared in front of his face and he leaned back to avoid it, knocking his head against the glass door. "Ow! Yes that's me. What's going on?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"The woman completely ignored him and turned to face the camera man she brought with her, "This is Lanna Riley from Channel 2 news, bringing you the news before anyone else! I'm here with Jake who heroically saved a girl just moments ago from three thugs with his bare hands. Jake, what crossed your mind when you faced those dangerous men down. I heard one had a knife..."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"the mic appeared in front of Jake again and he groaned. Lanna established herself as one of the most annoying reporter in the history of humanity a few years ago. She excelled at getting to scenes before anyone else and completely blowing things out of proportion. Everything about her was larger than life, from her bright blue suit that no reporter would ever wear to her horned rimmed glasses that seemed ready to have holes burned through the lenses from how hard Lanna was staring expectantly at Jake. If he had to guess, Lanna would probably be the same age as Sarah, though her tied up brown hair that was almost constantly in a bun along with the rest of her ideas of fashion made her anything but appealing. Jake just nodded to her and gave a nervous grin before slowly edging away from her./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Lanna frowned and cut Jake off, pushing the mic into his face and seemed to have the intention of shoving it up his nose, "No need to be shy Jake, you're a hero!" she said and threw a dazzling smile at the camera man, getting a thumbs up from him./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"It took almost twenty agonizing minutes before Jake finished with Lanna. Lana was also known for being very thorough. By tomorrow the story would probably be about how he took down five men using karate and throwing lightning out of his hands. Fortunately no one really took the channel 2 news seriously but Jake didn't think his social life would improve much with this kind of publicity./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake made it to his car and drove home, getting there a full hour after his normal time with no warning to his mother who he knew would be furious about him not keeping her up to date. The joys of having an overprotective parent were something Jake was pretty sure he could live without but there was no helping it./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"By the time he reached the door he resigned himself to whatever fate his mom had in store for him. He fished his keys out of his pocket and put it in the keyhole opening the door and bracing himself for the extreme chewing out he was bound to get./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"But there was no one home./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"His house was pretty simple. The hallway started at the front door and led to the living room with the kitchen attached to the living room out of sight. His room and everyone else branched off from the main hallway right before the living room. A light was on in the living room thanks to a lamp on a table but it was the only light on in the entire house./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake was no stranger to his parents taking his siblings and going out to school functions or dinner with his other siblings so he was more confused than worried. He tried to remember if his mom or dad slipped any warning about going out to eat or anything interesting but he couldn't recall them saying much today./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"He shrugged after a while, knowing they'd probably pop up later and headed over to his room and almost opened his door until he noticed a post-it-note on his door./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emHey honey! I knew you'd forget so I wrote this down. Your dad and I decide to go out tonight so we won't be home until late. Your brother and sister will be at Jenna's house. so you have the house to yourself./em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emLove,/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emMom/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"emTry and stay out of trouble dear./em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake slapped his forehead. He had completely forgotten his Mom had told him that she was going out with dad. Shaking his head he took the note off the door. and walked inside./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"Jaaaaaaaaaake!"/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake heard the voice loudly, though only in his head. He looked down at his feet expectantly, replying with his thoughts ,"Hey kitty, where are you?"/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna came up from behind him, rubbing on the sides of his legs slowly as she came by. She was Jake's espeon that he met almost six years ago though she was an eevee then. He found her back in an ally and it took all the convincing powers he had to convince his parents to let him keep her. Her evolution into an espeon was completely accidental, the original plan being for her to evolve into a umbreon but Jake found that he like her better like this. The fact that he could talk to his pokemon, or rather, think to it was a nice bonus that he quickly got attached to. Luna had a knack for sensing what Jake was thinking about and interrupting it, which she was exhibiting now.../span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"Jake, before you become lost in thought I thought you should know that you have a visitor waiting for you in the living room./em/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;""/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"What?"/em/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;" Jake thought, /span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em"But how did they get inside? You didn't open the door for them did you?"/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna sounded hurt, "Jake, you know I would never let anyone come in the house if thought they were any threat. I didn't sense any ill will towards you and she really seemed to want to meet you."/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Jake looked puzzled as walked from the hallway with Luna trailing behind him. Going into the living room he flipped a light switch and there, standing on the coffee table in the center of the living room was a very serious looking plusle. She was holding a piece of paper and a photograph in both of its paws and lying in front of it was obviously a glanced at Luna and spoke to her for a brief second before looking back at Jake expectantly./span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Luna hesitated, seeming confused by what she heard but she relayed everything to Jake's mind anyway,/span/spanspan style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"em "She said her name is Dee and that you're late coming home. She also has a message for you."/em/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"*****/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; page-break-inside: auto; orphans: 0; widows: 0; background: transparent; page-break-after: auto;" align="left"span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"span style="font-size: small;"Well this chapter came out a bit later than I hoped but, life happens! Hope you guys are enjoying things so far. Comments are still welcome as I'm still trying to improve my writing skills./span/span/p