Chapter 15: Day 2, New Beginnings

Florina, being illiterate, had waited for the others reactions from the others to comprehend what was going on. She had to admit none of them looked quite happy. Roxie, noticing that Florina was sufficiently intrigued decided to read the message aloud. "Dear Roxie, Eric, and company,

Kudos on finding and making allies with the Holon Phantom. Though it may have just been a fluke, dumb luck that he saw Eric, which was exactly what we needed to get to him. I am sure that our new friend will help to no end in stopping the Rainbow-Hexagon scheme, no matter what it may be. Unfortunately, he could not provide much further on locations other than a base that we are not yet prepared to handle and I haven't gotten much by processes for creating Physical Delta Pokemon (which sounded just as painful as the Phantom mentioned) on that disc.

Since we do not have any leads and I need to keep you on your feet, I'm sending you on the training exercise that Gabe was telling you about two days ago. Because it started yesterday, I will have to give you the briefing through this e-mail … and since the two teams are already even, you will have o be on separate teams.

This is how the exercise will work: each team is given a computer that is the key to winning, but to win you have to enter a seven letter password into the computer first to win. The project lasts a week and each day the leader of each group (the only one who is given his or team's password) must hide one new letter of the password somewhere in their base each day. In order to finish the password, the team must storm the opposing base each day, obtain the hidden letters, and get the information back before the end of the seventh day. Even if one team does not have the complete password, they should each enter something. Remember that this is an exercise in espionage, so expect trickery at any turn and know your allies well.

Good luck and have fun with this,

Wes"

"Furr…" sighed Florina as she realized what was happening. This would be an awesome experiment if Roxie and Eric did not have to be separated for its entirety. Or… could Wes have purposely sent them on a mission separate from each other to teach them something? They had each pretty much done a mission on their own thus far, and it seemed that they did not need to be reassured that they could still do things alone. If there was any point to Wes splitting the pair up, neither Eric nor Roxie yet understood it.

"Hey wait, he never said wh-" but Eric did not complete the sentence in the same location that he had started it. As Eric wrapped up stating "ere this thing is going to be," his face flared pink in authentic bashfulness. To his left he saw a hefty brown and yellow Pokemon with a mustache, a sizable tail, and comically a star on its head, red waves on its stomach, and a spoon in its right hand. Standing to the Kadabra's left was Blaze, confident as ever. In front of him, crowded and huddled around a dark blue, circular, plastic table were nine people; and by their appearance they seemed to be anywhere from ten to twenty years old. There were many other, similar tables in the gray cafeteria room packed with, presumably, their Pokemon. The Pokemon were in various stages of finishing their meals, but it was one of the humans, siting directly across from him that caught his attention.

The girl looked eerily similar to the description of Whiteon that Roxie had given him only a few days ago when he asked for her to recap her battle with the ditz. The only difference seemed to be that she was wearing an obnoxious neon light blue short-sleeve top, an equally disturbing pink miniskirt, and winking Clefable earrings. The girl certainly noticed Eric, for she batted her eyes in an astounding imitation of her ear trinket. Eric formed the beginning a barrage of questions, but he was once again cut short before sound was able to escape his lips.

"Ah, you must be the new recruit," said the eldest of the group. She wore sleeveless black tee and tan capris, black leather gloves with the faces of Mightyena printed on the palms. A black scrunchie to hold her raven hair into a ponytail, and black-tinted sunglasses pushed far enough down the nose that one could see the pure confidence settled in her amber eyes. Because she had addressed him first, and because most of the older guys were herded around her, Eric assumed that she was the leader of this mission, and a well-liked one. "Just introduce yourself and take a seat," she said with a nod as she motioned Eric to an empty chair.

Eric sat down in the chair, but his nervousness did not leave any sign of comfort in his face. "Ah, my name is Eric," the he looked around, looking for where Blaze was supposed to be seated. There was no chair for him, apparently they did not intend for a Pokemon more able than Eric to come to the table. Eric looked down, however, and there was the hen patiently sitting on his lap. "Oh and this is…" but Eric could not bring himself to say "my Pokemon"; he by no means owned the Pokemon patiently waiting on his lap for the discussion to start. Then it dawned on him, and Eric added, "my friend, Blaze." So everyone introduced themselves in turn; it came to be that Whiteon's name was Brittany and the leader's was Rica.

The formalities were soon terminated, and the group of youngsters got to the real discussion. It seemed that the day before a group of ten, half of team Blue had advanced to the Red base, only to be utterly defeated because the entirety of the Red squad had been waiting. Red, more concerned with protecting its opponent's key to winning than obtaining its own, had decided to keep its own team where it was. This left the entire traveling group to go to the neutral Pokecenter directly in-between the bases. Not all of them were completely down for the count, but so little where that it would have been futile to keep fighting. Apparently the team was well rested and up for another attack this discussion was going on and everyone else was eagerly awaiting the news.

"Wait, why does there have to be a Pokecenter halfway in-between the bases when we have a Center right here?" commented Eric. He already knew that this place had jus about anything that a person or Pokemon would need to live off of, it had been discussed briefly after debates about if the traveling team was really ready were over. Blaze rolled his eyes, he had obviously caught onto something that Eric had no idea about.

"… You aren't being serious, are you?" asked Rica, looking even more baffled that Eric, but Eric did not give but a shake of the head. "And you've already bee assigned missions? Eric, this is a challenge; the two bases have been placed just far enough so that it take half a day walking time to get to the other base. Calculate in the heat of the desert and meals and any other breaks, and you have at best sixteen hours. The only way to avoid walking time would be to send out one agent with a very fast Pokemon. In a group though, you have to make sure that every single member is okay before heading along."

"Then why didn't we just send one person to start with. Why couldn't everyone just travel to the other base on vehicles?" asked Eric. It seemed that they had already figures out a good plan of attack, but that they were not implementing it.

One of Rica's drooling fan-boys responded y saying, "She just said this was a challenge. We're not allowed scooters or cars or any other vehicles. We also though that our team would have more pure power than stealth in the start, so we decided to try raiding the base. It's obvious now that we should have sent in someone alone, but we didn't send anyone with a fast Pokemon out there in the first place and it could just be wasting time to send another one out, or waiting for another time to send one." So everyone gave their two cents about continuing or putting a stop to the raid and when or if a stealth operative should be used to obtain the information. About halfway through all the rambling and arguments, Eric realized that he had not had anything to eat since the day before in Holon's Pokemon Center, and nothing new was being suggested. Quietly he picked Blaze up, set him back into the seat, and walked up to the cafeteria line. A gleeful Chansey severed him with the utmost gracefulness and Eric went back to the table and sat down after placing Blaze back onto his lap.

Just as Eric stuffed the last little bit of rice into his mouth, Rica announced, "Okay everyone, I think we at least know our options now. We really can't make a decision until we see what happens in the second attack attempt. If we stay we risk wasting time. If we go we risk an attack later if Red is just bluffing by sending no one out. I'll call you all back into this mess hall as soon as I get the news. Until then I wan you" and she glanced over to Eric who had just finished swallowing " to take your belongings into boy's dormitory room 5 and report to Station 7, you'll be given more directions there. Don't worry about getting lost, there's a map right on the bulletin board in the hallway." Then she once again addressed the group in general. "Everyone else, back to your normal stations."

So Eric walked out, along with all of the Pokemon and every other Blue squad member. Just as Rica had said, there was a bulletin board waiting right in front of his face. He peered over the map, but there was one odd location printed on the map, it said "Day 1: u." Had he really stumbled onto the first letter for his own teams password so easily? It seemed that something so important would be hidden better. Eric shrugged indifferently and looked back to the rest of the map, but there came an annoying tap on his right shoulder. Ready to slug anyone who would dare annoy him while he was trying to figure out this map, Eric spun around with his fists clenched as tight as a Hitmonchan's. All that appeared in front of Eric with a pseudo smile twisted along her face; so Eric resigned with a sigh. "Hey cute," she said with another bat of the eyelashes, but Eric replied with but a grunt.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," grumbled Eric for he saw that Blaze had already taken a head start toward their sleeping quarters. "Wait up!" insisted Eric as he ran faithfully to his Pokemon's side. Brittany merely rolled her eyes while she walked down the opposite end of the hallway. There would be plenty of time for them to chitchat in Station 7, even if her lure had not succeeded.

"Florina… what just happened to Eric?" asked Roxie as she pushed some hair out of her face (she had forgotten to put her hair up again today) and looked over her shoulder to face the stunned ferret Pokemon at her side. Florina could only squeak, the Furret equivalent of a shrug. As if to answer the question, the Kadabra reappeared and grabbed Roxie; Roxie would have to understand what happened if she went through it herself. As they all reappeared in the Team Red base, the Kadabra made a brief check to be sure it had dropped it "passengers" off in the right place, then Teleported off again.

Standing before Roxie was a guy she might have gone for had she not already been interested in Eric. He was about 5 feet 9 inches, Roxie's, height, he had long, wavy, chestnut hair that curled up at the end, vibrant silver eyes, a firm, friendly face, and a complexion somewhere between light and moderately tan. He wore a pink and white striped polo shirt (Roxie desperately wanted to pull the collar down), slightly ripped light blue jeans, plain brown sandals, and an oddly glowing crystal necklace. The necklace had a hole drilled through the crystal and a strap of leather (tied around the back of the guy's neck) running through it.

What was even more astounding, however, was the Pokemon gliding ever so carefully around the young man's head. Most of the Pokemon's head (which looked oddly like a helmet) resembled a star; there were rounded golden points on the top, upper left, and upper right and smaller, earlobe-like points hanging near the eyes. Two similarly colored wings flew out of the back of this Pokemon; they did not help the Pokemon to fly at all, but since they did look similar to ribbons, they did help with decoration. The rest of the head (the part under the "helmet") was small, about the size of a teddy bear's head, and gray. It had two large, cute eyes with two small green triangles under them and a mouth moving with amusement. The body and limbs, silver just like its head, were comparable to a Pikachu's in shape. The main difference was a third eye lying right in the middle of its stomach. The Pokemon was the legendary Millennium Pokemon, Jirachi.

"Hey, you must be Roxie," said the guy as his Pokemon plopped down into hair. Roxie just nodded, too stunned and bemused to give any other sort of reply. "Welcome to Team Red Headquarters. I'm Adrian, and I'm going to be you're leader on this mission. This little guy is Starsteel." It was then that Adrian noticed that Roxie was paying much more attention to the Jirachi dangling its legs in front of his eyes more than to him. With a chortle Adrian asked, "So, do you want to say anything before I tell you what your job is going to be?"

Something finally made Roxie come back, so she replied, "How… how is that Jirachi out right now? I thought that Jirachi could only appear while the Millennium Comet appeared in the sky, and that comes around only once every thousand years. The last time the comet came by was only about three years ago, and it appeared during some festival in Hoenn…" Florina hopped off of Roxie's head and toward Starsteel, an attempt to make play with her. Adrian ducked and Florina grabbed Starsteel, sending them both rolling a bit down the hallway. Both trainers laughed as they saw both of the Pokemon get up and get aquatinted with each other in a series of sniffs and squeaks.

"I was actually at that festival," said Adrian before taking in a deep breath. "It was for a summer vacation. I was so excited that week, and I wanted one certain trinket the whole time to remember the trip by. Every time we passed by the jewelry stall I would ask them if I could get this necklace," and he indicated his neck accessory. "On the fifth day of the week, they finally caved in and bought the crystal necklace for me. Supposedly it gathered energy from the comet for the entire week and charged it for the next one thousand years. My parents insisted that it was a gimmick to get my money, but I still wanted it because I thought it would make me a more powerful trainer. I didn't know it would help me this much though…" said Adrian before taking a glance down at Starsteel and Florina. They seemed to be getting along fine, so he focused once again on telling his story. "So when everything was done, that mad magician making the Groudon-monster and all, my parents looked around for the Jirachi. They had to, my mom was a TV reporter and my dad was her cameraman. All they found was this giant crystal, they thought it might have been what Jirachi reverted to. When the brought it within about one hundred feet of me, it flashed and Starsteel appeared; when they took a step back he turned back into a chunk of mineral. So my parents did report that they found what they thought to be Jirachi, but they never told anyone that he'd been reanimated."

Roxie shook her head for a few moments as if she did not believe the story, but she had nothing else to believe in. "But how did you get here from Hoenn, how did you get into this stuff?" asked Roxie, now enthralled with her team leader's story. It seemed that if he was not the best person strategically, he was at least very lucky.

Adrian raised his right eyebrow, surprised that anyone wanted to her more of his nonsensical blabber. "I'll tell you more later. We have to start working now or nothing's going to get done and we'll lose this thing for sure." So Adrian led Roxie down the hallway and they found Starsteel and Florina rolling around in a mock duel. With a laugh the trainers separated heir Pokemon and instructed them to follow their lead. Eventually the group ended up in a dark room with television monitors set up all along the walls.

Roxie looked around the room, and saw that all the displays were live feeds from security cameras placed everywhere in the hideout. "So… what exactly is my job around here?" asked Roxie as Florina hopped over to the control panel under the largest monitor.

"You have the twelve to four security monitor duty for now, but we act in pairs around here and I didn't have a partner before you showed up…" said Adrian, rotating his hand around as if there was a logical conclusion to be made from what he just said.

"But I thought you were the leader, you have to have more important errands than what everyone else has to do," said Roxie as she made her way toward Florina. Gently she picked the Pokemon up, sat in a revolving chair next to the monitor, and placed the Furret in her lap. With great care she massaged Florina's fur and concentrated on the television sets.

"Hey, everyone has to do their fair share around here. I'm really just they guy taking a poll on what we should do and making a final decision. The only thing I have over any of these guys may be that I'm more organized," said Adrian with little confidence. And so they went on inspecting the hallways, but it seemed that any human or Pokemon moving around was indeed a valued member of Team Red. Eventually Adrian said, "I didn't realize how boring this was. I didn't have to do it yesterday since we had to fight back a Team Blue invasion. I guess I'll tell you how I got into this mess, but you have to tell me first, deal?"

"Okay," agreed Roxie with a smile; her story was simple, or so she believed until she really thought about it. She stopped petting Florina for a moment and asked, "Can you help me out if I forget anything?" Florina gave a cheerful chirp, a yes, in reply. While taking a few moments to recall it all, Roxie took in a gulp of oxygen. "Well, it all really started six years ago when my sister, she was sixteen then, was visiting my grandparents in Agate Village. I wasn't allowed to go; we live in a really far off region and I was only nine then. One day when she was out sitting by the waterfall, she noticed something weird about a Pokemon, something completely dark about it. She ran to tell the trainer immediately, assuming that he would be concerned that something was wrong with the Pokemon. If my sister had been paying more attention to the news, she would have known that it was a Shadow Pokemon. The guy, a ruthless member of Cipher, caught her in a sack and hauled her off to Pheneac City. There she met Wes, fresh from rebelling against Team Snag'em. He won her over with his ideas of atoning for his wrongdoing."

Then Roxie looked a little lost. She knew what she had to say, but she was not sure how much she wanted to convey or in what order she wanted to say it. She let her eyes wander back down to Florina and asked, "So, what then?" Florina, using the fingers on her forepaws, made a shape like a triangle on top of a rectangle. "Oh yea. So they thwarted Cipher, Rui and Wes did. Rui found that Wes had nowhere to go, so she invited him to my hometown, he stayed in the Pokemon Center. Wes was educated by the scientists of Cipher; Cipher and Snag'em had a longer running alliance than most people though, and he was with Snag'em his whole life. So, he had absolutely no problems finishing up his junior and senior years of high school. I used to bother him a lot in those two years, asking him to tell me stories about all his amazing adventures. Slowly he told me more and more as he got more sociable. After senior year he decided, with a group of his friends, to start up a security company. They start out with small stuff, shops and stuff, but eventually Wes's fame caught up with him and my sis 'sold off' her Eye so that he could get advertisement. So here we are, four years later, waiting to be or already employed by that company."

Once again Roxie was lost in her own tale, so she looked to Florina for guidance. This time, Florina pointed up to a group of Pokemon meeting up with their trainer. "Okay, I see where this is going. Wes got me to join slowly, starting three years ago. I really want to be a nurse, but her roped me in. He let me travel along with some of the agents on some of the easier missions and heal their Pokemon. He also gave me Florina to help me with equipment ad so on, he could tell that we would like each other too. The next year he put me on harder missions until the week before I had to go back home; it was only a summer job. He asked me if I wanted to a mission and of course I told him yes. It was really simple, I just had to bust into a Cipher base and leave with a CD. My confidence was shot when I found out that the redhead that got all the media attention last year already cleared out the place, but I still came back with what I was supposed to have. This year my partner and I have real assignments, but we're stopped cold. Er, at least, we can't handle what we're up against yet, that's why we're here."

"Whoa," responded Adrian with shock written over his face. Starsteel hovered over to Roxie's wrist and pointed out the watch, it was exactly four o'clock. While the Pokemon flew back onto its trainer's noggin, Roxie flashed the watch at Adrian. "Okay, lets go to our next shift and I can tell you my story," he said while he got up and stretched.

After safely tucking away what little items he had in his bunkroom and after a brief scuffle over whom would get which bunk (Blaze took the top and Eric took the bottom) Eric carefully made his way to station seven. Carefully for he had not memorized the map well enough to restore his path should he have made a misstep. Sure enough, however, he and Blaze arrived before a large metal door with a sapphire seven impressed upon it. Eric and Blaze looked to each other, hoping to glean off the other an understanding of what would be on the inside. Each of them shrugged at each other feebly and Eric opened the door, which emitted a loud screech. From the looks of it, the room was a large, freezing warehouse. There was fog billowing out everywhere, ice all along the walls and on the floor, and piles upon piles of boxes of food stacked in neat aisles. Eric could tell that it was food because of labels marked "Torchic Fingers", "Oran Berries", and so on.

"Hey, come over here get out of the cold!" demanded a particularly high-pitched from the opposite side of the storage area. Eric and Blaze once again looked at each other, confused, but they continued walking. As the duo paced in the general direction of the voice, they noticed that it became warmer and warmer. Soon Eric noticed that the tabs on the boxes became "Pokeballs" and "Printer Paper"; perhaps the storeroom was divided into sections. "Oh, good, you're here Eric. Help me with this?" asked Brittany as she looked up from a clipboard. Cautiously Eric walked over to her and was handed another clipboard from her.

Eric, being blunt, said, "You shouldn't be here. I know who you are and you shouldn't be here." Without giving her a chance to retort, Eric looked down at the clipboard and saw a paper that had Inventory Check as the headline with various boxes to be checked and items and quantities next to them.

After a few moments of walking toward the boxes labeled with his first items, Brittany shouted, "Stop!" and ran after him. Blaze followed after her, walking very casually and slowly with his arms tucked behind his head. "How do you know who I am anyways? You didn't ever see me, I know that much. You're girlfriend sure did notice me looking at you though," she said with a shrug.

Looking at him? Roxie had never mentioned that to him, and he assumed that Brittany implied that his girlfriend was Roxie. Whatever the reason, it did not put Brittany in any higher standing in his mind than it had before. "She told me what you looked like, I'm unusually good at conjuring up images in my mind, Just get to the point; why are you here?" and this time he turned around, looked her in the eye, and paused, expecting an answer.

"Oh, they couldn't get me for anything. It's not illegal to use Shadow Pokemon, then they couldn't be purified. All I did was battle that silly little brunette girl. They couldn't get me fore plotting against the government; I didn't do any of the plotting. Heck, it would be hard for them to prove I was part of the Hexagons considering that I could have made the costume myself for a costume party that had been held on a different boat that day. I didn't have any information connecting me to them on me either. I'll admit to you that I was one of 'em, but that Gabe guy offered my a hand, I've seen the error of m ways… blah blah blah. All I know is I'm not going back to the Hexagons, they're just an unorganized group of imbeciles gaining power for no goal," ranted Brittany while looking absent-minded and playing with her hair. "So, are you ready to get to work?"

So they commenced checking off the supplies, Blaze, Eric, and Brittany, for one hour with not so much as a whisper uttered under one's breath. That was, until Eric looked over to Brittany and asked, "But why here of all places? You could have gone anywhere and you chose to go into a group of people that thought you were the enemy." Blaze looked up at the girl too, and nodded in agreement with Eric.

"Oh, fine. To be honest, I had nowhere else to go. If I had gone back to those idiots Hexagons, I don't think I could live with myself. Besides that, most of the guys weren't as courteous as all you goodie-to-shoes. If I chose to reject the invitation Gabe would have just dug up dirt on me and land me in jail, or I would go off wandering around like a beggar. At least here I know I'm getting something done, that I'm going somewhere…" muttered Brittany, very unsure of herself. Eric could tell that she was genuine about it though, and felt that he had no reason to hold a grudge to her. Well, other than that stuff about Roxie, but it didn't matter much since he was with her… Or was he? They never said anything to each other about it.

Annoyed after checking almost hundredth box, Brittany screeched at no one in particular, "Why do I have to do this at all? Its not like we'll need to restock any time soon and we couldn't even if we wanted to. It just doesn't make any sense." Still, even through all her protesting she continually checked all of the boxes and found no faults whatsoever.

Eric pondered her question for a few moments while Blaze went on checking the supply of Tentacruel Ink pens. Eric replied, "Well, if someone wanted to come in here from the other side quickly, they would have to pack lightly. Where better to get some supplies and rest up than in a giant storage room f you're in an enemy headquarters. This way we can tell if someone is sneaking around or stealing stuff. As for all the stuff that's here… They probably do this exercise a lot with this group, or maybe they do lots of different exercises with the same group here. Plus it's for the trainers and all of the Pokemon that they have." For the next few hours, they continued to work and chitchatted. Mostly about the game and its various rules and regulations.

By they time they had finally finished, it was about seven o'clock, time for dinner. Brittany looked to Eric and said, "Oh, and by the by, I'll be needed my Pokemon back… thought they won't really be themselves will they?" and sulked off to the cafeteria. Eric asked Blaze to get them some food and bring in back into the room and the rooster Pokemon agreed with no resistance. So, having nothing left to do, Eric tossed himself into his bed (which was covered with blue sheets displaying various water Pokemon). Noticing that he finally had some downtime, Eric pulled out the horde of colored pencils that he had received from Wes and his sketchpad from his backpack. Then he just sketched all that he had remembered himself wanting to sketch since he started his adventure, starting with Blaze.

When Blaze finally came back into the room with pizza covered in Grumpig pepperoni and some cola. Eric presented him with his sketch, and the Combusken smiled and gave it a thumbs-up, or as close to a thumbs up as one could get without a thumb. As Eric munched on the pizza and sipped the soda, he looked through he flipped through his sketchpad and admired his work. He was sure to be famous for something involving art someday, he thought. Then he realized that for all his drawing he had not ever made a self-portrait. So he picked up a pencil and scribbled away until he had a very good likeness of himself displayed on the page. There was something wrong though, no, he decided that wasn't it. There was something missing, something that he had gained on his travels. He tried drawing in Blaze, which seemed to help the sense of completion, but it still was not enough.

Figuring that Roxie might know what was missing from his picture, he pulled out his PDA and began to type. In mid sentence he realized what was missing, but he decided that he should still check up with Roxie. So, he deleted what was there before and wrote anew.

Roxie had not noticed how hungry she was until Adrian mentioned that they were on cooking duty for dinner that day. So before any food preparation began, Roxie snacked on a few spare Chilan and Pumkin Berries that were lying around, Adrian explained basically what they were going to do. "All we have to is heat up this food, serve it and clean up, then we're done for the day. It sounds pretty easy, but each thing usually takes about an hour."

They fell into a sort of rhythm after about fifteen minutes with Roxie and Starsteel cutting up fruits and veggies (Roxie with her hands, Starsteel with his telekinetic powers) while Adrian and Florina loaded and unloaded anything from pizzas to pastries into and out of the oven. "Do you want to her how I got into this mess now?" asked Adrian as he took a step away from the oven n and wiped some sweat from his brow.

"I just have one thing to ask," returned Roxie without looking up from her cutting bard. "I heard on that newscast, the one you mom did, that Starsteel here can teleport. Why don't you just use him to get the clues for you or teleport you over to the Blue Base? And what about that Kadabra that dropped me off here; you could have used him too."

"The Kadabra was only to bring you here, its not partners with anyone on the base. As for why I don't teleport with Starsteel… well, I would have to go with him since I have the necklace, and if for some reason the necklace falls off or isn't touching me, I'll be stuck in a kind of 'resting world' between transit. It's only there to give the attack time to figure out if there's already something solid existing in the spot where you want to be and either moves you to a space nearby or waits until that space is unoccupied." Adrian did not much like to dwell on being caught in this fifth dimension (where it was said Ghastly traveled before thy evolved) and instinctively clutched his crystal necklace.

"Well, I guess it's my turn to fess up about why I'm here," he said as he let the precious chunk of mineral fall into his chest. The suspense gripped Florina and Roxie so greatly that Florina would have had a fried finger and Roxie a stubbed hand had not Starsteel take the most discrete control of their muscles. As Starsteel released his telekinetic grip, Adrian said, "Oh, I didn't mean for it to sound too exciting," with a slightly flushed face. "My mom moved to Orre; she was tired of fighting the best of Hoenn and being a field reporter and she was offered an anchor job over here. My dad was offered the job f her cameraman too. She followed the Shadow story and Wes closely, and a couple months ago she had an interview with Gabe. He noticed me watching throughout the taping behind the set, and asked me to battle afterward. I lost, but it was close, and he asked me if I wanted to do… well, this over the summer. My mom and dad agreed after a bit, and I'm here now," with a small shrug.

For a while longer they chatted, and in no time at all it seemed that the time to serve the food came. Most of them seemed nice enough, especially the older guys. Some of the younger men though took one look at Roxie and either sighed or gave Adrian a thumbs up; some immature Pokemon did the same thing. Most of the girls seemed irritated and avoided eye contact with her, though their Pokemon seemed interested and playful. After a majority of the group was happily fed, Roxie, Adrian, Florina, and Starsteel dined. During a downtime, Adrian offered to do the clean up solitarily, gave Roxie a map, and pointed out her room and a few other quarters that she might be interested in visiting.

After doing many exercises in the gym not a minute's walk from the cafeteria, Florina and Roxie sat down for a break. Before them was a television displaying Adrian's mother reading from a teleprompt with a creative set resting behind here and a lump with a lumpier head, blue rings around its head, a stinger-tail, and nonfunctional wings on its back laying next to her hand, a Shadow Dunsparce left over from the previous Shadow Project attempt. Although both were deeply immersed in the story of the leftover Shadow Pokemon and how the government planned to purify them, Roxie was dragged away by an incessant ringing coming from her backpack at her feet. She plucked the PDA out of her backpack and looked over an e-mail from someone a day's walking distance away.

At first Roxie was reluctant to give any information about Adrian and Eric was withholding what he had learned about Brittany. Eventually each side gave up, however, but personal feelings were for the most part excluded. Despite her burning hatred for any girl that would even to dare glance at Eric affectionately, Roxie agreed that people could turn over new leaves even if they did not believe in themselves. She had retold the adventure of Wes departing from Team Snag'em after all. She also agreed to hand over Shadow Jigglypuff and Shadow Ditto which she had hauled around with her and she took the two Electabuzz back into her party. Eric meanwhile had to tinker with the Snag Machine and the Pokeballs until they reverted back into Brittany's trainer number. He decided to take Antoinette and Shadow Tropius around with him while he was managing Pokemon in his and Roxie's Pokemon Storage Boxes. Both sat down in bed before the end of the day wondering what tomorrow could bring with what they had discovered that day.

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Side Notes:

-Lots o' back story in this one. O-o I almost wish I had put some action somewhere in here, but it never seemed appropriate.

-I hope that no one is disappointed in the fact that I decided to add elements of the anime (Jirachi: Wish Maker), and RSE (the TV Reporter and her cameraman, I forgot their names. :P)

-Sorry it took so long. I blame school, my father's newfound interest in a computer game, TCG tournies, and… my own procrastination and short attention span. .