A/N: Okay, I'm really really sorry for the delay in updates here. I apologize directly to you especially, SkylerOcon. Probably really disgusted with me right now…but there wasn't much I could do about it. We've been hit by a snowstorm over on this end, and there was a massive power outage. No Internet access. Trees toppling over power lines all over the place. Icicles that you could kill a person with. Definitely not fun. This stuff seems to be happening on a weekly basis, though…ugh. But anyway, that's over. Time to get on with life.

Disclaimer: OCs are the only things I have a right to claim in this story.

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Salem sat back in her red swivel chair, watching idly as the computer screen logged off and then shut itself down. Then she stood up, gazing emptily into space. She could still see that strange, blue-haired man in her mind's eye…she hoped he was all right. What could he have done to get the police's attention? But the, he was carrying a sword…illegal, by all standards…but it must have been fake, right? Who could tell?

Salem wound a lock of her yellow hair around her finger over and over for several minutes, until she realized what she was doing and glanced at it. She frowned. Were those split-ends she was looking at? Oh dear…

Feeling resigned, she stepped out of her room and into the hall, climbing up a set of stairs and passing her brother's room without a glance backwards. She caught a brief impression of Sam perched on the edge of his bed, fiddling with his Nintendo DS, a look of intense concentration on his face. But Salem ignored him. Her older brother had always been a mystery to her, anyhow, though most girls would say she was the luckiest person in the world to live with someone as handsome as him. Sam did have a handsome look about him, but Salem had never noticed anything out of the ordinary about that sixteen-year-old life-long nuisance.

With these thoughts she stepped into the bathroom, flicking on the light-switch, intent on checking her hair more closely in a mirror, and she was so deep in her thoughts that at first she didn't notice anything amiss. Until…

"Oh, good-a morning! You must-a be the princess-a's new maid, aren't-a you? It's-a pleasure to meet-a you."

Salem looked up in surprise - and leapt backward with a small shriek.

The two men in the bathroom seemed taken aback by this unexpected response. The shorter one, dressed in a red shirt and overalls and wearing white gloves, took a step forward, mustache twitching in agitation, while his taller partner, clad in a green shirt and overalls, looked up from the toolbox lying on the toilet in front of him.

"Oh dear…then again, you might-a not. Many apologies-a. You should-a go to another-a bathroom instead, young mistress-a. This one has-a some plumbing problems, according to the-a princess…"

Salem was at a loss of words for a moment. Then she did the only thing she could think of.

"SAM!! ROBBERS!!"

She cast around frantically, spotted a broom leaning against the wall in the hallway, and grabbed that, taking another few paces from the bathroom door and lobbing it threateningly at the two men. "N-Now, don't you two move! I know karate! And I've got - pepper spray!"

Neither of these facts were true in the least, but Salem made the best of it. She could already hear Sam pounding down the stairs.

"Salem? What are you shouting about?" In moments he was on the landing. Sam was relatively tall for a sixteen-year-old, but he didn't look too threatening for the moment, to Salem's dismay. He held the DS dangling in one hand, and he had an absent expression on his face, as though he had simply been bothered in the middle of a good movie.His curly yellow bangs were almost covering his inquisitive hazel eyes, and the casual white T-shirt and pale blue jeans only added to his harmless personality.

All the same he came forward and stood beside her, gazing mildly at the two 'robbers' that stood in the bathroom, looking eternally confused. His perplexed expression melted into interest. "Hey, so you invited Jake and Joe to the house this early? That's different. Nice costumes, I must say. You two are going to wreck the Halloween party. I didn't know you two were Super Mario fans. Maybe we should talk sometime." He grinned at the two in the bathroom, then turned to his younger sister. "Sis, you've outdone yourself. But next time, you don't need to shout so loudly. A little exercise up the stairs would do you some good." He turned away, hiking up the stairs again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm trying to deal with a glitch in Super Mario World, and I'd rather not be disturbed."

Salem gazed after him, feeling slightly faint. "Glitch?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed mildly, already halfway up. "Pretty weird one, too. The screen's taken on a habit of getting ingulphed in this purple static without warning, and whenever that isn't happening, Mario keeps on disappearing. Everything else is moving, but he just vanishes. It's weird." With those words he was gone, disappearing into his room.

Salem couldn't help but fume after him. Leave it to her ignorant, intolerably mild brother to get herself murdered by house thieves. Did he not see her waving a broom? Swallowing, she began to back away from the door to the bathroom, wondering how fast she could run to get to the phone in the kitchen and dial 911. Not very fast…she wasn't an athletic type of person…

"Hey Bro, something odd's-a going on." The man in green spoke for the first time. He was peering out behind Salem. "Didn't the hall to this-a bathroom have yellow plaster? This-a wall is white."

"Wait-a minute…" The man in red came forward, and Salem jumped backwards, broom braced in front of her. The man merely gazed at her oddly. "Don't-a be scared. We won't-a hurt you." Then he simply brushed past her, into the hall. After taking a look around, he shook his head. "Eh, I don't-a think we're in the princess's castle any-a more."

The man in green stepped out of the bathroom past Salem as well, joining his brother. "You got-a that right, Mario. Do you-a think this is-a the work of Bowser again-a?"

"I'm not-a sure, Luigi…"

Salem stared at the two as they turned to her, looking at her intensely.

"Young lady, could-a you tell us if you have-a seen a large green Koopa around here-a?"

Salem didn't reply for several seconds. She felt utterly weirded out, as they called it.

"Uh…no…never heard of one…"

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I bit into the second quarter-pounder Alex had bought for the two of us at McDonald's, staring at Red as he sat with his Pokemon , as Alex had called them, a few feet away. I don't think I will ever get over the sight of these strange creatures…I admit it, they almost scared me. The Pikachu, as Red called it, was all right - I could get used to it. But the other one I wasn't so sure about.

Alex sipped a little Dr. Pepper from her cup, emblazoned with the McDonald's logo as well, and pointed out the large blue thing with a swirling white belly that had sat down beside Red as soon as he had released it from its pokeball, which was what Alex had referred to the strange red-and-white device as. After swallowing a mouthful of hamburger, she spoke, rather as though she were telling me about the name of a particularly good book.

"That one right there is a Poliwrath…I think it's been with Red since childhood. Master swimmer in every respect, in case you haven't noticed those muscles on its arms and bodice yet. Never fatigues no matter how much it exercises. Some say that it'd have the ability to swim the diameter of the entire Pacific Ocean without much effort. It has three evolutionary stages, starting out from the egg as a Poliwag. Second stage being a Poliwhirl. After that it can evolve into either a Poliwrath or a Politoed. This one's around level eighty, if I remember right."

I glanced at Alex, who was casually dipping a french fry in some ketchup, then looked at the large Poliwrath that was cheerfully eating a handful of some sort of brown pellet beside Red, who seemed perfectly at ease and was biting into a sandwich he had produced from his backpack, which was lying beside him. The Pikachu was sitting beside his knee, eating some brown pellets from a bowl as well, but the other four balls at Red's waist had remained unopened for the time being. I didn't mind that too much - the ones that were out were weird enough as it was. I was just glad that the park was completely empty for today, as most people were either at work or at home watching television. To make things easier, Red had also decided to eat behind a cove of trees, hiding him and his Pokemon from the view of the occasional car that passed by. All the same I was uneasy and tense…what if someone saw him all the same?

I turned back to Alex, agitation renewed. "What did you mean, exactly, when you said that you were going to pay the game dealer a visit? What good would Sakurai be able to do?"

Sakurai Miyamoto was a woman around her mid-twenties that ran a small renting shop for videogames. I had always been slightly unnerved by her - she had a slow, casual atmosphere around her that made you slightly uneasy. And I could still remember a time when there had been this one kid in her shop. The dude had been trying to smuggle a Metroid game out of the shop without paying, but before he had even taken a step towards the door Sakurai had popped up behind him, a mop in hand, and said, "Oh, so you're a Metroid fan, eh? Good choice. Weren't planning to steal it, were you?"

The aisle the guy had been standing in had been completely hidden from the view of the cash register, where Sakurai always sat, and there was not a single camera to be found in the whole shop.

Yes, it was very weird. But I didn't know how Sakurai was going to help in this case.

"Huh?" Alex looked up at her sandwich and stared at me blankly for a moment, then laughed. "Oh, that? I was just talking to myself."

The pit of my stomach dropped again for the umpteenth time.

"What?!"

"I was just talking to myself. I didn't think you'd hear that." Alex sat back on the park bench, gazing at the clear blue sky above. "The particular game you were looking at, I was going to have Sakurai take a look at it too. Going a little defective on me lately. My avatar, which I coincidentally named Red -" She cast a glance at the same guy, who was cheerfully at unawares. " - keeps on vanishing on me. You know, getting wiped off of the field like he doesn't even exist. While everything else just keeps on doing their regular thing, moving around and such. A purple haze blocks the screen occasionally as well." Alex stood up, crumpling the hamburger wrapper she had been holding, and made a shoot for the trash can a few feet away. It landed cleanly inside with a satisfying rustle, and she sat back down. "I had half a mind to let Sam take a look at it, but Salem told me he was busy dealing with a Super Mario World glitch at the moment, during the e-mail conversation. So I was going to pay Sakurai a visit instead."

I was only half listening. "So you're telling me that you have no idea what we're going to do about - well - this?" I cast an arm in Red's general direction, feeling slightly outraged. "I can't believe I actually took you seriously!"

"Well, guess you were listening too hard." Alex gave me a reprimanding glance so mild I only felt more betrayed. "Sometimes I think you take everything too seriously, Taylor."

"You think so? Well, maybe it's because you never take anything seriously at all!"

"Suit yourself." Alex shrugged and stood up again, tilting the almost empty cup of soda in one hand. "I didn't ask you to get involved. That's your problem. But I think we should get going. Sakurai closes up around two today." She tossed the cup in the trash as well, then stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. Then, without another word, she turned and trudged up to Red, who seemed to be finished with his own lunch. I gazed after her, fuming, but I soon forgot my grudge momentarily as Red raised a pokeball. A red laser suddenly shot out from the knob at the front, engulfing the acquiescent Poliwrath, and then drew back, the shape of the Poliwrath melting and receding with it. In seconds the large Pokemon was completely gone.

Alex stopped beside him as he stood up, slinging his pack over one shoulder. The Pikachu leapt up his arm and perched on his opposite shoulder, cocking a curious ear in my direction. I quickly averted my gaze to the road, and my cell phone started ringing almost at that exact moment. Even as I dug that out of my pocket, Alex was speaking.

"So, what are you going to do now?"

"Oh, I'm not really sure…I'm obviously lost, so I was wondering if maybe there's a Pokemon Center here? That way I could phone Professor Oak or something…"

"Sorry, but I'm afraid this town doesn't have one. Say, why don't you stay here for a while? My house is free, I don't think my mom would mind, at least until you know where to go next again."

"Oh, I don't know…"

I tuned out their voices, bending my attention on my cell instead.

"Hello?"

"Taylor, is that you?"

I sighed inwardly. "What now, Salem?"

"Um, I was wondering, if you could come to my house? Like, maybe, I don't know…now?"

"Why?"

"Well, there are these two weird men that I found in the bathroom, and they aren't going anywhere…asking weird questions, too…and Sam thought they were Jake and Joe in Halloween costumes, and he left me down here with them…"

I blinked at this, though I wasn't too surprised. Salem's brother Sam was drop-dead handsome, but he wasn't much when it came to socializing. If anything, he was more of a computer geek if anything else, and was obsessed with videogames of any sort. Alex thought he was all right, of course, but that was Alex. I tended to avoid him more. He was always a little too mild for my taste.

Salem was still talking, her voice very fast. "…and I thought they were burglars, but now I'm not so sure…"

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, I'll come over. Probably just a couple of renegade advertisers that didn't have anyone respond to the doorbell. I'll -"

A deafening roar drowned out the rest of my words, which I couldn't remember saying anyway. I heard Salem shriek on the other side of the phone, and then there was static, followed by the artificial tones of an operator.

"We're sorry, but the link of this call has been terminated and is therefore no longer accessible. To redial, press one; to -"

I left it at that, snapping my cell phone shut. My heart was racing as I turned around to yell at Alex - only to topple over as there was a massive explosion right behind my back. Dazed, my face in dirt, I could only listen to the sounds that washed over me in a confusing medley. First Alex's frantic voice, calling my name, and then a whistle as something flew over my head. Then another voice, this one deep and angry, resounded right behind me, as though outraged.

"What trickery is this?!"

Then Red's voice broke through, suddenly sharp and clear, a command.

"Pikachu, thunder!"

"PIKA!"

I cringed as there was suddenly a rumble, followed by the unmistakable crack of a thunderbolt. I thought I heard the same man behind me grunt, followed by some sort of muffled curse. I tried to raise my head, but was blinded again by a flash of violet light. Then something large and hard hit me on the back of the head, and I blacked out.

And far above our heads there was a flash of white light, followed seconds later by a hiss of cut air as a small silver ship, lined in blue, streaked across the sky in pursuit of another ship similar to it, firing a barrage of green lasers.

A/N: Well, there you go. Hopefully the story is beginning to get more interesting. So toodles, until next time.