# # # Chapter Specific notes # # #
This chapter takes place between early morning (06:30) and mid afternoon (14:00). That gives you a sense of time scale.
This is actually in all my stories so far, but when Eon's dream, its usually memories.
Chapter 3: The Human Factor (Part 1: Morning)
Ganon was sleeping, dreaming he was back in the nursery.
He had been picked on by some of the younger boys who were bigger than him, and had gone to sit by himself in his favourite space besides the Wall. It was sheltered from the rest of the nursery by bushes, so no-one could see he was there. He often found a strange solace in talking to himself there, able to speak freely without fear of reprisal. Not as though anyone else could hear him, being about a kilometre from the main building.
"Those boys always pick on me. They gang up deliberately just to try and make my life miserable. I hate being the smallest one here. I don't even have any friends."
"You too huh?" He heard a voice say softly from the other side of the wall. It was definitely female, but there were no females in the Latios Nursery. He panicked and flew back to the nursery, immediately flying into his room. He pulled the covers over his head to hide, shivering slightly to the amusement of the other boys. He vowed never to tell the other boys about the voice.
- - - - - - -
"Hey! Sleepy head! Wake up!" He heard Mildred shouting outside the cave. He groaned sleepily and flipped himself back over, staring up the tree. Both Swellows were glaring at him with a scorning glance.
"There's something you're not telling us laddy. I can tell. You're all tense, and during the night you spontaneously turned orange." Lomar said to him. Ganon hung his head in shame. There was something he was holding back, not out of trying to hide it from them, but the fact that he wasn't very good at it. He looked up at the birds who were gazing expectantly at him. He decided it would be better to tell them straight off.
"I can shapeshift." He said, before glowing blue all over and suddenly becoming a Swellow. The real Swellows gasped in horror as they saw him. It looked like a Swellow that had lost all its feathers, and had an extra pair of wings. Overall, it just looked vile.
"Turn back! You need a lot of practice." Lomar said disgusted as he watched the Latios return to normal. Lomar shook his head tutting for a while, before an awkward silence eventually encompassed the group. Ganon poked the ground experimentally for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
"We're leaving this valley." Mildred announced out of the blue. Ganon stared at her incredulously and began to stutter something, but was stopped as she raised a wing.
"This gorge isn't big enough for you here. We had a look around before you woke up, and we saw a nice little town just ahead. We decided it would be a nicer home than in here."
"So we're moving house! Catch!" Lomar cried out as he pushed the nest off the branch and onto Ganon. It landed on his head, scratching his face with the bits of branches sticking out the bottom.
"Are you sure?" Ganon said as he pulled the nest off his face. He couldn't help but feel slightly taken advantage of.
"Absolutely certain. You need to practice your shape shifting abilities, and we've decided the most useful shape for you would be human."
"But how did you know that I could shapeshift before?"
"We're clever, and we worked it out based on our line of work. But anyway, think about it Ganon. Humans have the biggest brain compared to their size. If you can mimic a human, your own learning process will be accelerated. Effectively, you will become amazingly powerful very quickly." Lomar said.
"But I don't want power."
"Then what do you want, my boy?" Mildred asked him. Ganon looked down at the floor ashamedly, and shook his head. Telling them that would have been even more embarrassing than demonstrating his shapeshifting ability. Even if he did tell them, there was no way the Swellows could find her.
"Then what are you waiting for? Come on!" Lomar cried back down at him. Ganon followed the birds down the river, carrying their nest along with them. He looked into it, and noticed that it had been packed full to the brim of various items.
"Had this idea in mind for quite a while haven't you, Lomar?" Ganon said with a slight smile.
"Yep." He cawed back, "The canyon gets boring after a while."
"I was refferring to the amount of stuff in here."
"Weight training. That's good enough isn't it?" Mildred laughed back at him. Ganon laughed slightly too, but his claws were already aching.
They passed over a series of waterfalls that lined the canyon walls, flapping through the mist at the bottom. If Ganon wasn't so preoccupied with making his arms remain attached to his torso, he'd have had more time to actually appreciate it. As such, he had to endure about five hours of discomfort, although the end results had better be worth it. On and on they flew until they reached a small town surrounded on one side by a dense forest, and the other side by the river. Buildings were scattered around the basin neatly, all centred around the PokeCentre in the middle.
"And this, Ganon, is your new home. Welcome to Cemusem Village!"
They flew over to the forest edge and chose a good tree to put the nest on, leaving Ganon up there to pivot it into place.
"Hmmm... We'll give him a few days to pick a form, then Kenai can have him." Mildred suggested, earning a nod from Lomar just as Ganon flew back down to the ground.
"Well, everything is set up now, time to meet the neighbours, don't you think?" Lomar asked everyone.
"If you don't mind, I'm going to check out the human village. I really could do with familiarising myself with the human shape." He said, before turning invisible and flying off into the town. Mildred looked back to Lomar.
"Impulsive child. He's just revealed another of his Latios secrets as well." She said, shaking her head slightly. A long string of curses came from mid-air next to them.
"Language child!" Lomar shouted after him as Ganon flew into the main village.
Ganon was floating through the village quietly, looking at each and every person that he passed. They all seemed to have similar characteristics, but never any two exactly the same. He was surprised, because pretty much all Pokemon of a species looked exactly the same. He looked at each face, committing any feature he liked to memory. So far he had built up a generic picture of how he wanted to look, but was still stumped by what he should wear as a human. He floated idly past a tailors shop and saw a very important looking man being compared to a length of yellow tape. The man appeared pleased with a black waistcoat he was wearing. Ganon nodded idly at the combo.
The man modelling the clothes though looked too old for Ganon's taste though, and none of the clothes seemed to suit his personality either. He looked in through the window again, before he felt something hit the back of his head. He looked around quickly and saw a small gang of children running after a football that was bouncing the other way. Now these children knew how to dress, much more colourful. He looked at the polo shirts and the jeans that some of them were wearing, comparing them with the T-shirts and shorts that some other kids were wearing. He didn't really like the shorts, human legs looked too skinny.
He flew back to the seclusion of the nest. He put the images together in his mind and focused on it. He glowed a dull blue, before he flashed once. He looked down at himself, and was pleased to see that he was wearing some reasonable trousers and a rough shirt. Well, the trousers were blue, rather than the original green the boy he'd modelled them off was wearing, but now he saw it, he seemed to like them better in blue. He looked into the nest and pulled out a shiny stone so he could look at his face. He scowled at his reflection, and was surprised by the amount of menace his new face was showing. He made various stupid faces at the rock, each more humorous than the last, when he saw Mildred and Lomar return. He waved at them, forgetting that he was in human form. He was confused when they backflapped slightly away from the nest, but his train of thought was punctured as they screeched loudly, and began to divebomb him. He could only hear them screeching at him as he tried to bat them away frantically. They were pecking ferociously at his face and arms. He tried to lean back further and further to dodge their attacks, and was forced to take tiny steps backwards towards the edge of the branch, until eventually falling backwards off it to plummet twenty metres to the ground below. He landed with a heavy crunch before he blacked out.
Routeside elsewhere.
Laura had had a blessing of a pleasant night of uninterrupted sleep. She stretched and yawned as she uncurled from under the cover of the tent, and rolled up the doorway to see Martin leaned against the bottom of the trunk of a nearby tree, still coated in mud. She flew over to him slowly, and tried to gently nudge him awake.
"Whuzza… SNORES…get that frog outta my home… Snore…"
Clearly he was still asleep. She flew up a nearby tree, and picked some apples. She tried eating one of them whilst holding the several others, but accidentally dropped one. It landed straight onto Martins's head, instantly waking him up.
"WAAAAGH! GET OUT OF THERE YOU STUPID…Oh, morning Laura." He said when he noticed her above him. She had paled completely when he had started yelling gibberish, and was still in shock when he took the apple that landed on him and ate it in one gulp.
"Always wanted to be able to do that!" He said grinning, "Hey, don't we have somewhere to get to today?"
She shook her head to dislodge the effect, and nodded.
"Make up your mind, crazy girl." He yelled up at her. This had the unfortunate effect of causing her to fall out of the tree and land on him.
"Yes, we want to get to a town so we can find you a new place to live."
Martin didn't hear a word she said. He was stuggling to breath underneath her, and was flailing frantically. His head eventually poked out from under her, and he gasped sharply.
"Ow... Off...Heavy... Pain...Not... Good!" He squeaked incoherantly. She moved to one side to let him get up, and he stretched his limbs.
"God, you're heavy. Well, the nearest major city is Idrinal, which is about an hours walk away. If you look that way, you will see it on the horizon."
Laura looked over in the direction he pointed, and saw a large cluster of spire-like buildings. She transformed back into her human form, and started walking.
"Yo, Laura, wait up. We've still got to pack up the apples. We can't waste good food."
She tried to talk, but no sound came out. This time Martin noticed.
"What? Can't you talk as a human?" He asked her. This could be a major setback.
She shook her head. That was a no, so she couldn't talk.
"DAMN IT!" He swore loudly. Laura looked offended at his language, but remained silent.
"Okay, it's a good job we're not too far from Lutran Port. They have an enunciation class there that doesn't ask too many questions. Usually they just get illegal immigrants looking to learn the language. So… the way to Lutran is… that way." He said, pointing over to a much smaller cluster of buildings. She began to walk off again.
"Hey Laura, learning how to use your voice is important, so it'll be better to turn back into your usual form and fly us both there."
She growled as she transformed back.
"I'm not a beast of burden. If it's so important, why not run?" She said, and taking off immediately towards the town. Martin screamed desperately behind her.
"BECAUSE I'VE ONLY GOT LITTLE LEGS! WAIT FOR ME!!!"
She smiled at his crazy antics before spinning around in the air. She rushed back to him, and picked him up under the arms, before flapping eagerly back into the air. He screamed as she soared through the air straight towards the port town of Lutran.
It only took them about ten minutes flight before they reached the port, but the second she landed, Martin hobbled over towards the grassy verge at the side of the road, and vomited into it. Laura could hear some small creatures complaining, and wasn't surprised to see that when Martin turned around, there was a Ratatta clinging to his nose by his teeth. She laughed as Martin rolled his eyes.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm in pain. So if you could just... GET THIS DAMN RAT OFF ME!" He yelled, flailing his arms around wildly. She rushed after him, trying to catch the Ratatta's tail to pull it off his face. He was flailing around so wildly though, that she couldn't reach it.
"Pokeball! Go in the backpack as a human and take out a pokeball. Throw it at the Ratatta!"
She quickly transformed and rummaged through the backpack. It was in a little pouch next to the opening, and she pulled it out. She threw the tiny ball at the Ratatta, but it bounced off. She didn't know what was happening until a small green haired youngster emerged from the bush behind Martin.
"Hey! What are you doing?! That's my Ratatta!" He yelled at her. She pointed frantically at Martin, and for the first time, he noticed that it was biting him.
"Ooof! Sorry! Didn't notice." He said, pulling out a Pokeball, and returning the Ratatta. "You should have said."
Martin was clutching his nose sorely, and was moaning slightly. He hobbled up to the trainer and punched him squarely in the knee. The small boy fell over onto his back and looked at the Mudfish Pokemon. It was throwing globs of mud at his face and he raised an arm to shield himself from the projectiles.
"There are laws against Pokemon doing that you know. I could get that thing put down for that!" He yelled at her. She looked angry, and was about to give him a piece of her mind herself for even suggesting it. Fortunately, Martin was able to hold her back when he stopped hurling mud.
"Hey, Laura. Ignore the runt. He's not worth it. I know." He said cautioningly. The boy looked at Martin briefly, and scowled at him.
She scowled at the boy back, before turning away from him and walking into the main city. If that was what the locals were like, she didn't want to be here longer than absolutely necessary.
"Man, what's her problem?" He said to himself. He decided it wouldn't hurt to follow her, and began to run after her, lagging behind just enough so he wouldn't be spotted. He moved into the shrubbery along the roadside and he weaved through the undergrowth after her, little more than a small navy blur.
She jostled her way through the crowds in the town centre, pushing past busy market stalls behind Martin as they tried to make their way to a PokeCentre. There wasn't really anything that caught her eye, despite the numerous stall owners trying to get her to buy their wares. So far she had been offered three rugs, a small crate of vodka, and once simply a shaking box that the owner was too scared to say anything about, although judging by the fact he only had a large chunk missing from one arm, it was probably safer not to ask.
But then she saw something that looked a little too out of place. Sitting in a side street from the market plaza was a tall man in a fine black suit selling silver jewellery. She was confused as all the other market stalls seemed to be run by people who wore little more than rags, so what was this aristocrat doing here. Intrigued, she wandered over to the stall. The man watched her carefully as she approached; adjusting a monocle perched over his left eye with growing interest.
"Err... Hello miss, what can I do you for... I mean, what can I do you for... I mean," He coughed several times to clear his throat, "What can I do for you?" He eventually asked in a polite manner, slowly enunciating each word. She looked at the man's smile and smiled slightly back, before she looked back down at the stall. Her eyes wandered over it for a few seconds, before she gasped. There, sat on a little purple cushion, was a silver pendant that looked sort of like a Latias, except it was a bit out of proportion. She picked it up by its chain, and looked at it from all angles. She noticed various other differences quite quickly; the ears were tufts were longer, and the creatures legs were attached directly to the main section of the body rather than sitting on the sides of a dome on the back, which was also absent. The man coughed to get her attention again.
"I see you are interested in the Latios necklace. If you want it, please come around here." He said, extending his hand around his stall.
"Don't do it. This guy doesn't look like the sort of person who'd just let you walk away with something like that. He's up to something." Martin said from under the stall. Laura looked at him briefly, but decided to ignore him. The pendant was so pretty, even if it was misshapen and he'd got the species name wrong. She smiled sweetly, and took his hand. The man smirked, tightening his grip on her hand, and led her away from the main stall, out of sight of everyone else. She could see a malevolant glint in his eye, and realsied that Martin was right. This man wasn't someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley, despite that was where he was now leading her. She became afraid and tried to pull back, but he just held her tighter and dragged her away faster. She tried to scream but no sound came out, so she resorted to hitting him with her free hand. Martin suddenly noticed exactly what the man was doing. Laura's mimic of the pop-princess Lantadyme had got her into trouble.
"HEY! ASSHOLE! YOU GET OFF HER NOW!!!" Martin yelled as he tried to attack the human with a headbutt to the crotch, but the man just kicked him away under his stall, and continued to try to pull her away from it. She looked down briefly at Martin in horror before seeing something purple flash by. The man howled in pain and released her hand, clawing at something on his face. Another hand grabbed her and she turned around to see who it was. The boy with the green hair was inches away from her, and she recoiled slightly in shock. There was an edge of fear in his eyes as he glanced back at the Ratatta that was still maiming the man's face, before looking back at Laura.
"Come with me. You're not safe here." He said taking her hand, before he spun around on his heel and pulled her away from the man still howling behind them. She grabbed Martin by the arm as the boy took off with her, dragging him along too. The green haired boy pulled her along through the port faster than humanely possible, but at least it got them away from the man. Laura was practically being dragged through the air horizontally by the force, and she smiled slightly at how similar the sensation was to actually flying. Martin wasn't as comfortable with the new position though obviously.
"ARGH! I TOLD YOU I'M NOT GOOD WITH FLYING! PUT ME DOWN, PUT ME DOWN!" He screamed loudly, although to most onlookers, it would just sound like a series of terrified yelps. The boy laughed slightly.
"I don't care if you've got trouble flying." The boy dragging them said. Laura looked back up at him, and would have screamed. The boy's hair had turned red, resembling fire more than actual hair, and although she didn't notice it, his clothes seemed to have darkened considerably and turned into a fur like substance. Of course, the speed they were travelling at made it impossible to focus on him clearly. He turned sharply through a back alley off into another side street, weaving through and under stalls, occasionally tipping them over. Laura winced expecting to feel pain from the falling merchandise, but the boy was racing too fast to be seen by the naked eye anymore, let alone hit by falling debris. She looked back at Martin and laughed as his cheeks had ballooned out from the airflow, revealing his gums. They practically flew around another corner, and she noticed that the boy hit his chest. A dumpster at the far end of the road tipped over to one side, revealing a very long tunnel sloping down into what appeared to be the side of the PokeMart. He dashed down it with them in a blink of an eye, hitting the button again to make the dumpster return to its original position. From the outside, it just looked at though they had vanished into thin air.
The tunnel they were in was dimly lit on each side by small electric light brackets next to the ceiling. The boy stopped suddenly, causing Laura and Martin to fly over his shoulder onto the floor. He bent over clutching his knees and wheezing to recover his breath. Laura got up from the floor where she and Martin had landed and nursed over her arms. They were sore from the impact, but there was no obvious damage. Martin groaned and sat up in a daze rocking slightly, having taken the impact mostly on his head. Laura suddenly noticed that her other hand was still clenched tightly around something, and she opened it. She gasped again as she realised that she was still holding the now stolen Amulet. She turned around, but a hand grabbed her arm gently to hold her back. She looked back to see a look of resentful sadness on the boy's face.
"It's no use returning that Latios Amulet. That pervert is dead," He said slowly. "I would say sorry, but I'm not. He had to die. You saw what he tried to do to you. We've been trying to bring him down for ages for his crimes against young girls. Its just that before we couldn't call it an act of defense."
Laura looked back at her feet shocked. Did that make her responsible for the mans death? Martin coughed loudly from next to them, drawing their attention.
"Laura. You heard what he said. If he wasn't killed then, he could have gone on to erm... attack even more young girls. Surely the death of one is worth the lives of many?" Martin said. The boy laughed.
"Since when have you had a philosophical side Martin?"
"And since when have you called me by my name, rather than 'that thieving rat from Razor'?" Martin yelled back testily. The boy smirked slightly, and began to walk down the corridor towards a steel vault door in the far end of the corridor.
"Since you stopped being a pain in the arse." He replied, beckoning Laura and Martin to follow. Laura ran up alongside him, and looked at his face. He was wearing a confidant smirk, and something else in his eyes. There was some kind of fire burning there. He stopped suddenly, and Laura crashed into the doors in front of where he stopped. She rubbed her face slightly as it stung, and the boy smirked at her antics. He pulled a key-ring out on a chain attached to his belt, and picked out a very large key with eight sets of teeth radiating from the spoke like a bicycle wheel.
"It's not often we get to wow people," he said, twisting the key in the lock. A metal plate uncovered itself in the floor, raising a series of various identification devices, "We usually don't allow visitors and business rivals," He put his hand on a scanner and his eye against another, "But you helped us terminate a long time threat, so we've made an exception for now." Two lights blinked green, and the instruments retracted back into the floor. Sixteen pistons simultaneously retracted inside the bulkhead, pivoting the portal open to reveal a second door. It was much simpler double door. "But anyway," He wrapped his hands around the handles of the door, looking back at the pair. Martin was still fuming silently, and Laura was still staring at the vault door behind them. He clicked his fingers to get her attention again. Martin hit breaking point.
"ANSWER MY QUESTIONS DAMNIT!" Martin yelled at the boy. The boy sighed as the vault door closed behind them, refusing to lose his temper.
"Still as impatient as old times. Anyway. Welcome..." He threw the doors open wide to reveal the immense room inside, earning a silent gasp from Laura, and a gob smacked look from Martin, "To the Kids Grid: Kraith Detachment."