Zach looks up from his sandwich, apparently very pleased. "You know, Genown really does have the best restaurants."

Nichole nods as she finishes hers off. "Definitely! I mean, have you been to that ice-cream place around the corner? Best rocky road ever." Zach nods in agreement, taking another bite of his food.

Of course, I've just been staring at these two this entire lunch with my eyes fixed into a glare. It took them ten minutes to convince me to even order a pointless lunch. "Okay, what are we even doing here? Aren't we supposed to be catching those hybrids?"

Both of them look almost surprised to hear that. But the shock soon turns to laughter, Nichole's being a bit louder than Zach's. What is with these two? It was a serious concern!

"Oh man," Nichole breathes once she finally calms down a little. "I almost forgot, you're new."

"Let me tell you something," Zach says, continuing on for Nichole. "We don't have to obsess over our latest assignment all the time. You have to take a break and relax for a few minutes."

"We've been here for an hour!"

Nichole looks away, obviously trying to seem as innocent as possible. "What? They've got really good food. But hey, we'll pick up the search right now." She stands up and steps out of the booth, dragging Zach out with her (much to his disdain).

"Hey! Don't grab me like that!" He dusts himself off, visibly annoyed. "What's the point anyway? They're definitely not around anymore.

My expression becomes one of skepticism. How could he possibly know that? We only looked for twenty minutes before he went off on his own for five! "And you know this, how?"

"Oh, don't worry about Zach's logic," Nichole interjects. "He's usually right about these things. He's got a sort of specialty when it comes to finding and tracking our quarry. He's like a hunting dog or something."

"Oh, shut up."

"No. But what matters is, we're heading out toward another town." Nichole grins. "So, where to, Scooby-Doo?"

Zach growls, understandably, but manages to respond in a somewhat flat tone. "Blutere is the closest city to here, which means that the luxio hybrid probably fled there. As for the cinccino, she hasn't been seen here in a month. She's either there too or somewhere in Serods forest."

I cross my arms, impressed. "Wow, Zach. Never thought you'd be so insightful."

He sighs. "Great. Now I've got two girls looking down on me all of the time."

"Well, you are kind of short," Nichole comments with a small smile on her face.

"Shut it!"

~Blutere City~

By the time the three of us reach Blutere, the sun has set. It took us hours to comb the forest on our flying pokemon. My Starapter is exhausted, and to be honest, I'm not much better. At least he gets to take a break until later. I'll be up all night. Maybe I should have taken that offer for free food earlier...

"So, that search was a bust," Zach says, annoyance deeply embedded in his voice.

Surprisingly, Nichole still looks pretty positive. Is it even possible to get her down? "Not so. We could have ended up searching the city all day, and they could have been in the forest."

"But we searched the forest all day," I retort.

"Good point. But let's start looking around. They've got to be somewhere around here." I may be as tired as a Slaking, but she's right. We still have a job to do. Zach and I nod in agreement, though he still looks pretty mad.

"Okay then," Zoe begins, "here's the plan: We all split up and do the searching for those two hybrids. Ask around town if anyone's seen them, or can give us a lead or two. There's no way they can avoid being spotted here. Got it? Okay, break!" Nichole heads off, down Sourd Street, before either of us can get a word in. I guess she still has a lot of energy to get rid of.

"Well, Zach," I say, turning to face him, "I guess we should-" And, he's gone. I should have guessed he'd be on the case that quickly. He probably just wants to get to bed, though. Well, he probably knows what he's doing anyway. I should get going too.

I cross the street, already knowing exactly where I'm headed. The area surrounding the beach is the section of town with the lowest concentration of citizens. Even if the gym is there, it's one of the best places for hybrids to hide. My bet is, at least one of them is hanging around there. With all of that water, the luxio would probably find it easy to defend himself if necessary, so he's most likely there. Perhaps I'll get lucky and find a really clean area where the cinccino is most likely to be.

Hopefully, I'll be able to avoid a fight. I can't exactly let them run free, but it feels cruel to harm them more than I have to. It's bad enough that they'll probably be stuck in the basement's headquarters forever.

All of a sudden, there's a flash of color in front of my face, and I'm unable to react before I've collided with it. It doesn't take me long to realize I just walked into a person. I must have been really caught up in my thoughts.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that. Excuse me." Now that I've backed up, I can see I ran into a teenage boy. He's quite tall, and has wavy blond hair. Kind of cute for his age actually.

He shakes his head. "No, excuse me. I wasn't looking where I was going." He starts to walk away, but I remember what I'm supposed to be doing at the last second.

"Wait!" Crap that was loud. "I, uh, need to ask you something."

He stops and turns around. "Yeah?"

"I'm out looking for some hybrids; a luxio and cinccino. Have you seen them around here somewhere?"

He shakes his head, almost immediately. "Nope, just humans and pokemon. But good luck searching." With that, he keeps walking. I didn't even get a chance to tell him to call if he sees either of them. But in the end, I guess he was a little freaked out to hear that there were two hybrids in the city, ones that we were particularly searching for. It usually meant they were a problem, so it was a good thing he was probably in a hurry. Hopefully we'd find them soon.

All of a sudden, my X-Transceiver beeps. In a moment, the person on the other end begins to speak. I hold my arm up to try and hear better. "This is Zach Lukah. I need back-up! There's a really tough hybrid up on the south end of town. I'll send the coordinates, but get here fast!" The transmitter suddenly cuts out, and the screen begins to display a map of the town. Just as Zach said, there's a red dot at the north end of town. I'm close, but it'll take me a bit to get there.

I'd better start running then.

~Route 304~

Finally, I near Zach's location. Luckily, we're far enough outside of the residential areas of the city that not too much will be caught in any conflict. It's mostly beach. But judging from Zach's panicked tone, there's going to be conflict.

A bit more running, and I finally see what all of the commotion's about. In the midst of a heated battle are Zach's lampent and the tough hybrid Zach spoke of. He's covered in shaggy, brown fur, except for around his head. There, he's got wild red, orange, and yellow streaked hair that almost gives the impression of being on fire itself. A pyroar hybrid. Well I picked the wrong day to leave my Water types at home.

At that moment, Nichole catches up. She actually looks pretty winded, but considering she probably ran across half of a city, it's understandable. "I'm here," she pants. "Where's... the... hybrid?"

I point out the battle just out of ear-shot. "Over there. He's fighting a pyroar."

"Well, it's nothing the three of us can't handle, right?" I nod. It can't possibly take on all three of us at once, right? We've got the upper hand here!

"Well, not really."

I turn to Nichole. "Did you say that?" I don't even need her to answer. Judging by her confused expression, she's just as confused as me. But our questions are soon answered when a strange feeling comes over my entire body. Just looking at Nichole, I can see the blue energy surrounding her body. Psychic!

Before we can do anything, the somewhat tingling feeling soon becomes a crushing force. I can barely breathe as we're lifted into the air. I try my hardest to crane my neck downward allowing myself to see the perpetrator. Standing at the top of a sand dune not too far away is a... little kid? His entire body is covered in a weird, green slime or something and his eyes are glowing blue. Definitely a hybrid of the solosis line, but it's hard to tell which one. Though judging from this powerful Psychic, most likely reuniclus. But how does a kid who looks seven or eight get so strong?

"Sorry about this!" He calls up. "But you're not allowed to get in the way. My friend is over there getting your friend."

It takes all of the strength I have to talk back. God, it's like I'm being crushed by a million weights! "Why... do you want... him?"

The kid almost looks impressed. "Wow, you can still talk? Too bad." All of a sudden, the pressure increases. I can't move at all. It's nearly impossible to get in air. "Since you don't matter though, I guess I can tell you. We need him to come with us because he's annoying. What kind of-" Suddenly, the boy cries out in obvious pain. The glow in his eyes fades. I can feel the hold he has on me loosening, all the way until we're dropped back into the sand. At least it wasn't pavement.

"What the hell was that?" I cough out once I'm actually able to talk again. But this time, someone beats Nichole to the punch.

"See!" The little boys shouts. He looks mad now. Gone is the playfulness in his eyes. Now there's just a fierce glare. "I told you he's annoying! He just had to interrupt our fun with a dark type attack like that!" It makes sense now. Zach must have seen that we were in trouble and told his lampent to attack the kid! But even that must have left him open for attack by the pyroar he was fighting.

"Well, it doesn't matter," the boy continues. A somewhat sadistic grin grows on his face. It sends chills down my spine. "We can continue from where we left off." Once again, his eyes begin to glow bright blue. But before anything can happen, a grey and black blur rushes past me and plows into him. Another cry of pain escapes him as he's thrown to the ground.

Latched onto his shoulder by the teeth is a mightyena. That crunch looks like it hurt. "Don't worry about him," Nichole says, stepping forward. She's holding her mightyena's pokeball. "Go help Zach. We'll hold him off."

I nod and bolt forward. I just hope I'm not too late.