Maddi's past continues. We saw the good part. Sadly, this is going to be the bad part. Hopefully she'll be able to move on from it and make peace with what has happened.

KedharS: Living his life.

Rosealine gold: Sadly we aren't exploring all of Maddi's past. I'm saving her details about her sister for later.

Aquahaze675: Who knows? Should be interesting.

Thunder Fire: I wonder why as well.

JoshGamerV: Interesting. I hadn't noticed.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Hopefully it should be a good story.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 404

"Why do you read books?" Misato asked Oscar. "They are an inefficient method of retrieving information."

"Hah! Misato, you say funny things," Oscar laughed.

"It is not my intention to be humorous. I am attempting to determine the reasoning that you are using to value books so highly."

Every other word Misato was saying was a word that Maddi didn't understand. This girl was so weird, she didn't know what Oscar found so interesting and fun about her. This lab was creepy, and the girl who was here was a little creepy, too.

"Hey, um…"

Oscar turned to Maddi. "Yeah?"

"Can… can I go back?" Maddi asked. She felt a little weird. There was a chill on the back of her neck, she felt really nervous and scared, like there was something wrong. "My mom's going to be coming back for lunch, so…"

"Yeah, we can-" A loud boom interrupted Oscar, and the ground began shaking. Maddi fell over, surprised.

"What… what?" Maddi sputtered, looking around in confusion. She stood up, and more booms shook the room.

"I don't know, what was that?" Oscar asked, confused. More shaking. "Is it an earthquake?"

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall, accompanied by shouting voices.

"This way!" A deep voice shouted. "The lab is this way!"

"Is it the doctors?" Oscar wondered, walking to the door. But before he could peek out, four men in black uniforms with big red "R"'s on the chest burst in, knocking him over.

"What?" Oscar groaned, sitting up. "Hey, what's going on?"

"There, that's the one," one of the men said, pointing past Maddi at the blue haired girl behind her. "Grab the prototype and the pokemon. Shoot the kids."

Maddi's blood went cold. What did he say? Shoot the kids?

Growlithe snarled at the men and ran forward, but one of them threw out a pokeball. An Ekans emerged, opening its mouth and biting down hard on the fire pokemon, wrapping around him with its tail.

"Growlithe!" Maddi cried.

One of the men walked forward and pushed her to the ground, grabbing Misato by the wrist.

"Come with me," he snarled, pulling at Misato's arm. Misato was obediently dragged away by the man.

"Okay, take care of them," the man in charge said, one of the other men reaching for the gun strapped to his belt.

Maddi froze, squeezing her eyes shut. She curled up into a ball and began sobbing. She wanted her mom and dad. Where were they? Why did she have to leave with that stupid boy? She didn't want to die. "Mommy… *sniff* daddy… help me! Mommy!" Maddi blubbered on the ground, too scared to see what was going to happen.

"Initiating protection protocol." Maddi barely heard Misato's voice over the sound of her own tears. As she shook on the ground, crying, shouts and screams rang out in the room around her, followed by gunshots. But she didn't feel any of the searing pain she expected to feel from being shot. After a few seconds, she cautiously opened her eyes, and what she saw nearly made her throw up. That girl, Misato, was standing in a pool of blood, her white dress stained a deep crimson. The men who had attacked them were…

Incomplete. Even the Ekans had been… dealt with.

Maddi did throw up.

"You are safe now," Misato said, turning to Oscar. "I shall guide you to safety now."

"Maddi, are you okay?" Oscar didn't look much better. He looked like he was going to be sick. But compared to Maddi who actually had gotten sick, he was keeping it together pretty well. Maddi felt herself gag again. The irony scent of blood made her want to hurl. She took Oscar's hand and stood up.

"I want my mom and dad," Maddi whimpered.

"We need to find my dad," Oscar said, shaking his head. "Misato, do you know where he is?"

"Negative. This body has been denied terminal access to the mainframe of the Silph Corporation," Misato told them. Maddi didn't really know what she meant, how did she know so many big words like that? And she wasn't even done talking. "The data in this body has already been backed up for The Third. My functions are currently limited. Operating under emergency protocols to escort the president's son to safety."

Misato grabbed Oscar by the hand and walked out into the hall, pulling the shaky boy along with her. The Growlithe followed after them, leaving Maddi alone in the lab for a moment, not sure what to do or where to go.

The building shook again. That made Maddi's decision to follow after them an easy one. She avoided looking at the bodies around her and held her hand over her mouth, heading out into the hall. Whatever was happening, whatever that strange girl was, she knew she would be safer with them.

She stopped at the door and took a deep breath, shaking her head. No, there was something else she had to do, first. It made her want to throw up, but…

Be brave, Maddi. You gotta be brave! Maddi took a deep breath and then held her nose, turning back to the bloody room. She could see the shiny pokeballs on the men's belts. Whatever was happening, she was scared that the building might fall down. Her dad always said that tall buildings fell in earthquakes. And if these guys were buried, then there pokemon…

Maddi gathered up all the pokeballs, and looked regretfully at what was left of the poor Ekans, resisting the urge to vomit. She lifted the hem of her dress into a net and held them up, running down the hall as fast as her little legs can carry her.

"Maddi!" Oscar's voice echoed from across the hall. "Are you here?"

"Coming!" Maddi shouted. She caught up with the two of them, just in time for the entire hallway to explode.

What came first was the flash. It was light so bright that Maddi couldn't see anything else, forcing her to shut her eyes. Then there was the heat. It was like when she stuck her head over her parents' stove, but over her entire skin. Everything was so hot that she didn't even realize she had hit something hard, a painful throb in her skull the last thing going through her head before the darkness swallowed her.

Maddi didn't know where she was, but she woke up the feeling of something warm and wet seeping into her face. For a second, the pain in her skull made her worry that her head had split open and her brains were oozing out.

But… brains didn't pant.

She opened her eyes, her vision slowly refocusing. It all became clear just in time for her to see a big, wide tongue running up her face.

"Gr-Growlithe?" Maddi whimpered.

"Growl!" Growlithe yipped, stepping back from her. Maddi could see the ceiling above, and realized she must have been lying on the floor. She tried to sit up, and that made her feel like everything hurt. This was even worse than when she fell off of her bike and scraped up both her knees. She cried in pain, wishing her mom was there to kiss it all better. She was so caught up in her crying that she missed the groaning coming from down the hall.

It took a lot of doing and it hurt a lot, but Maddi was able to sit up and see that the pokeballs she had saved were littering the ground around her, along with the rest of the rubble. She turned her head to look down the hall, and saw that the way out was covered in dirt and chunks of wall. She went pale. Behind her the hallway was mostly intact, but that was where the elevator was!

"Urgh…" Maddi heard the groaning again. She turned and saw Oscar face-down, pinned under the rubble, and her face turned pale. She stood up, groaning in pain, and found that she couldn't walk on her right leg. She limped over to Oscar to take a closer look. He was dead. Wait, no, he groaned again. He was unconscious, but definitely breathing. She let out a sigh of relief, and turned him over as best as he could.

Oscar's face was covered in blood, it looked really bad. As for Misato, she had no idea where the girl was. She grabbed onto Oscar's shirt and pulled hard, trying to yank him free. But she could barely move him an inch.

Maddi turned to see that the boy's right leg was pinned under a section of wall. She walked over and tried to pull it out, but it was completely stuck. Her tiny little hands couldn't do anything. She began crying in frustration. She hated this. She flopped down on the ground and began to cry. For countless times since all this had happened, she cried for her mom and dad, hoping they would come find her, come help her. She didn't know how long she was crying, but when she was all cried out she knew that there wasn't anyone around to help. She could leave Oscar and go look down the hall for a way out, but she couldn't do something like that…

Wait, she did have help! Maddi turned to look at the pokeballs strewn across the ground. Maybe they had a pokemon who could help them! She crawled over and pressed the first pokeball. A Ratatta. Not much help. Next was a Koffing. Also not much to do with that one. The other balls contained a Zubat, a Cubone, a Drowzee, a Venonat, and a Paras. All of them working together weren't able to get the rubble off, either.

Maddi sighed in defeat, recalling all of the pokemon to their pokeballs, except for Growlithe, of course. There was nothing she could do.

Then, the rubble began to shift. Dirt began to slide down and tiles began to move aside. Maddi scrambled away from the mountain, worried that the whole place was going to come down.

Instead, she saw something much more unbelievable. From the dirt emerged… Misato? The blue haired girl broke free of the mountain of rubble burying her, her eyes scanning around as she slowly turned her head. When she saw Oscar buried below her, she moved with more deliberate purpose than she had been, Maddi noticed. She hopped down and landed on the ground, Maddi gasping in surprise when he saw her.

Chunks of wood and metal were buried in her flesh, making her look like a pincushion. Her dress was full of holes, but the only blood on her were those of the other men. She didn't have any burns, bruises, or cuts… At least not on the parts of her that still had skin.

Maddi rubbed her eyes, not sure if she was seeing correctly. But a lot of the girl's skin had been ripped away, including most of her face. What was underneath it was… shiny.

"Are you… a robot?" Maddi gasped. She wondered if Misato was like one of those robot heroes she watched on tv. Why else did she have metal armor underneath her skin?

"Negative. I am a Mechadoll, a fully autonomous mechanical body imbued with an advanced artificial intelligence designed to mimic human behavior."

Maddi had no idea what she just said. "So… you're not a robot?"

"Affirmative."

"Oscar, he-"

"I have assessed the damage. His vitals are in a critical state. His life is currently at risk. I am now switching to recovery protocols."

Misato knelt down beside the unconscious boy, and began pulling away at the parts of wall and ceiling pinning him down. Maddi gulped as she saw the girl lift a chunk of cement bigger than Maddi's whole body over her head and throw it down the hall. She was getting more and more certain that Misato was a robot.

Misato finally threw enough debris aside to get Oscar free. Maddi felt another wave of nausea come out when she saw his leg. There wasn't any of it she could see that wasn't red or purple, and most of it was oozing blood.

"He is not conscious. He is certainly in shock. His leg is losing blood fast. It is important to stop the flow of blood. Otherwise he will die."

"What? No! Save him!" Maddi gasped.

"It is imperative that his life is preserved," Misato declared. "To keep him alive I will proceed to amputate his leg."

"Ampu… what?"

"It is not necessary for you to know." Misato ignored Maddi, and picked a sharp piece of metal up from the ground. Maddi realized what was going on a moment before she did it, and quickly turned away from the horrific sight. But she couldn't shut out the sickening "squelch" of the bloody limb being severed.

"Growlithe. Use ember," Misato ordered. Through her shut eyes, Maddi could hear a loud "hiss" that sounded like when she had accidentally touched the stove back home, and could smell something burning. She winced. She didn't look up again until there was nothing to be heard. She peeked out from behind her hands, and saw Oscar, minus a leg, carried in Misato's arms.

"H-hey! Where are you going?" Maddi demanded, limping after the girl.

"I have stopped the flow of blood. His life is not in immediate danger. But it is imperative that he receive proper medical care. The exit is sealed. With the current damage to my functions I am not capable of removing the debris blocking the way before his life would expire. Therefore I will take him to another exit."

"There's another way out?" Maddi gasped, limping after her, putting the pain in her leg out of her mind as best as she could. The Growlithe dashed along with her. "Where?"

"Affirmative. My internal blueprints of this building contain data on one other existing exit out of the basement level we are currently on. We can use this exit to secure the safety of the president's son," Misato informed her.

Maddi followed Misato as best she could, but the speed at which the robot girl (Maddi was certain now) was walking made it difficult. She nearly tripped but she fell on the Growlithe, the big pokemon warming her.

"Growl," Growlithe said, licking her reassuringly. Maddi clung to his fur.

"Sorry, guy… my leg hurts too much…" she whimpered. It was all too much. Where were her mom and dad? Were they safe? Were they even alive? Did the men in black get them? Were they like Oscar, buried under a pile of rubble?

Would she ever see them again?

Not knowing that the answer to that question was no, Maddi felt a surge of energy that enabled her to get up and turn the corner to follow Misato… and nearly slam right into a big metal wall.

"What? Huh?" Maddi gasped, shocked. "What's a wall doing here?"

"Emergency blast wall," Misato explained. "To prevent entry if the integrity of the building is compromised."

"Can… how do we get out then?"

"It is not possible to exit with this wall. Passing through the wall is not possible. There is no method of opening the wall while the building is in lockdown mode."

Maddi went chalk-white.

"Then… how do we get out?" She whimpered. "Are we… are we stuck here?"

"…Negative. I am capable of opening it." Misato turned to Maddi. She walked back around the corner and walked a good distance away from the wall, where she set Oscar down on the ground. Maddi followed after her, as did the Growlithe.

"What? How?" Maddi asked.

"I will destroy it," she replied. "My body does not have the physical capabilities to open the door in the time necessary. But the systems that make it up are capable of generating enough power upon detonation that they will be able to break through the blast wall. You can then take the president's son to safety."

"What? Wait, I don't understand…" Maddi said.

"You must get him to safety," Misato replied. "To fulfill my duty to protect the president's son I must open up the exit for him. I can only do that by self-destructing. This is the only method of doing so. I will rely on you to get him to safety, Madison Whitmore."

Maddi swallowed. On her leg, she wasn't sure if she could. "Do… do you really have to… whatever it is? Self-destruct?"

"Affirmative," Misato said, nodding. "Self-destruction is the only method of getting him to safety. Thus I must request that you take him to safety after I have finished."

"But there's gotta be another way…"

"Negative. It is fine. All the essential data of this unit has been uploaded to The Third. This unit was already scheduled for termination. There is no problem with using that to help the president's son. Please take care of him."

Maddi gulped, and nodded. "I-I will. I'll do my best."

"Acknowledged. Stay behind this corner. At this distance you will not be affected by the blast."

Misato turned, and headed back down the hall, leaving Oscar with Maddi and the Growlithe. Maddi hugged them both tightly and shut her eyes. A loud explosion rocked the ground, nearly blowing out her eardrums. When the ringing finally stopped, she saw the hallway corner scorched black.

"C-come on…" Maddi whimpered, lifting Oscar up on her shoulder as best she could. She limped forward, wincing in pain as she tried to carry his weight, with the help of the loyal Growlithe. There was no trace of Misato in the hall, only the twisted and burnt remains of the door. Maddi dragged the unconscious boy as far as she could, before throwing herself through the exit.

That was when Maddi stopped talking, and took a breath. Her face was soaked in tears. She wiped them away, and looked over the darkness of campus.

"The rest, well… the rest you can probably guess," Maddi sighed. "Team Rocket attacked Silph Co. I managed to get Oscar to safety, and the police got us to the hospital. That was where I learned that my parents… they were caught up in it. They had died in the fire. Or maybe an explosion. Maybe they were shot before either of those things, I don't know. All I knew was that they were gone. It… it was a really hard time."

"Maddi, I'm sorry," Sango said, placing her hand on her friend's shoulder. Maddi turned to her, and hugged her, crying into Sango's chest. Sango patted her on the back reassuringly.

"It's okay," Maddi said, wiping her eyes. "It was rough, but… thank you. I'm glad I told you. That little girl went through a lot, so… it's a lot more difficult for me now. But with you, well… I'm glad that you're here. Thank you."

"Of course," Sango smiled, hugging her tighter. "You don't need to worry, Maddi. I've lost my mom, too. I know how hard it is."

The two girls continued to hug each other for as long as Maddi needed Sango's support.

Maddi's backstory was harsh. That was a painful day to go through. Hopefully things are turning around now.