Cyndaquil wandered around the base aimlessly, listening to the rain patter outside. The wet atmosphere made him uncomfortable, and he missed Buizel, and he couldn't find Zorua anywhere. Rainy days were usually fun, even for him, but today was just dreary and depressing.

"Sirai?" he asked, looking around the empty hallway. Maybe the AI would play a board game with him, or discuss battle strategies, or something like that.

"May I help you with something?" a cool voice answered politely.

"Sirai…?" Cyndaquil asked nervously. Is this some kind of joke…? "Are you there?"

"Yes, Cyndaquil," said Sirai sarcastically, the screen popping up in front of him. "May I help you with something?" the AI repeated.

"Uhmm... uh…" Sirai's disconcerting unfriendliness had thrown Cyndaquil completely off. "I thought maybe we could… I dunno, discuss something? Battle strategies?"

"If you wish," replied Sirai tonelessly. A 3D model of Cyndaquil popped up onscreen and rotated around. "Your pressure points are your paw pads and your nose; as a Fire type you are weak to Water and Rock types mainly. To counter these types, you will need to use effective Physical attacks against them. Suggestions: Tackle or Headbutt, at your level. Taking into consideration your below-average physical strength…"

"Stop!" interrupted Cyndaquil abruptly, feeling sick. What the heck? Sirai…

"As you wish," said the AI, closing down the screen. "What else may I help you with?"

Cyndaquil blinked, terror rising slowly in him. He backed away slowly, then turned and scampered away down the hallway. When he looked back, the blue screen was still hovering in the hallway. Cyndaquil fled.

He found himself in front of the library door when he turned the corner. The library was pretty much his place; neither Zorua nor Eevee liked to read, and Buizel relied mostly on Sirai to get information. Cyndaquil, however, had always loved books, maps, traditional writings, and stories most of all. He dreamed of filling up the empty shelves with rows of books someday. The library was barely used, but it was quiet and nobody ever went in. He opened the door.

To his surprise, there was somebody already inside. Cyndaquil blinked, trying to register the unfamiliar image with his mind.

"Zorua?" he asked in disbelief.

The Dark-type was squinting at the first page of a large, heavy book. She turned her head one way then another, and even turned the book upside-down.

She didn't turn her head at Cyndaquil's voice, focusing on the confusing pages.

"Get over here."

She scratched her head at the jumble of blurry words and indecipherable diagrams. It was a headache. Whatever the book was, it was probably Buizel's.

Speaking of the Water-type, Buizel was standing just outside a holographic blue screen that was the door to VISION labs. Wow… he thought. They actually finished it.

He swiped a card through the scanner on the wall and the hologram disappeared, giving him permission to enter. Incredibly excited, he stepped through the gleaming silver doorway to see… absolute chaos.

Pokemon techies were running all over the place, doing things from pacing the room in a mad scramble to corralling flying-literally flying- discs. The room was a mess, the rows of sleek silver chairs toppled and holoscreens flying every which way, occasionally crashing into each other before moving on.

"What happened here?!" Buizel exclaimed.

A frantic Smeargle carrying a burnt-out disc stopped to answer him. "It's awful! Neeaaahhhhh!" she gasped out. "We were locked outta the system for hours, a-a-and we just got back in- and all the memory's gone! It's gone! It's GONE! And so's THE BACKUP! AND THE BACKUP OF THE BACKUP! IT'S GOONNNNNEEE! Neeaaahhhh!"

Buizel blinked. "What?!" he yelped as the realization set in.

Smeargle nodded in reply before rapidly hyperventilating and passing out on the floor, the disc flipping into the air before bouncing off her head and landing next to her.

Where's the techie head when you need him?! Buizel ran back out into the hallway to find a certain Pokemon.

Back at the base, two Pokemon were in a musty, largely unused library, staring at a thick book.

Cyndaquil ran his paw lightly over the smooth pages, staring at the diagrams. It seemed like a fairly recent book, judging by the technological drawings and terms. He noticed a strange square-shaped hole in the ground near Zorua. Is that where this came from? The text was dense, but pretty understandable, although out of context. What was this about? He took the cover and flipped it, eyebrows raising in surprise as he saw the title.

"This… is about Sirai?" he asked in disbelief. "Oh- about Sirai- have you noticed anything… weird about her lately…? Today?" He glanced sideways at Zorua.

The echoing drumroll of the rain was rather eerie in the library. Zorua would've blurted out an answer if it weren't for the sounds that reminded her. The sounds that reminded her that Sirai was everywhere in the base. Even in the library.

"Sirai? Pssh, no." Zorua laughed the question off. "You're just imagining things, Cyn. Or does the thunderstorm scare the ickle Fire-type?" she teased.

While talking to Cyndaquil, her front paw was tapping on the ground. Just slightly, and so quietly you'd have to be right in front of her to notice over the rain.

Tap tap tap. Tap… Tap… tap… Tap tap tap.

S.O.S.

Cyndaquil raised one eyebrow slightly and looked at the ground, a little hurt by the tease. A flicker of movement caught his eye and he immediately focused on Zorua's tapping paw. She wasn't tapping rhythmically, as she usually did when she was bored or nervous. This… was a pattern.

"Knowing Morse code is important when you're a rescue team member," explained Eevee, spreading out a chart with several dot-dash patterns on it. "If you're a technology freak like Buizel, you can use it for programming and whatnot, but mostly rescue team members use it in the field for sending messages without being detected by the enemy." She glanced ever so slightly at Zorua. "Subtlety is important," she said meaningfully.

Cyndaquil recognized the basic pattern of taps right away. S. O. S…! Quickly looking away from Zorua's foot, he laughed sheepishly.

"Eh, you're probably right," he said. "Hey, Zorua, by the way… don't you think that maybe your Meema would like some company today?"

"Yeah, totally!" Zorua nodded rapidly, but then froze. Her face fell. "Dang it though, it's raining!"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Cyndaquil said airily. "I have an idea…"

A few minutes later, two small Pokemon were making their way across the grass, each toting a huge, glossy leaf above their heads.

"Don't stay out too late!" hollered Eevee from the door, shaking her head. I wonder what this is all about? All of a sudden they're out the door… they barely even said goodbye! She shrugged and turned away. Whatever floats their boat…

The two Pokemon ran through the forest, ducking under low branches, leaping over logs and stones, and occasionally splashing each other in puddles. Zorua was in the lead, and both of them soon arrived at an oddly shaped cove.

It was basically a depression in the earth, about fifteen feet deeper than the land surrounding the hole. The cove was also guarded by large, rocky outcroppings that ringed around the area. It was an odd piece of terrain for sure, but what really made it incredible was the inside. Inside the cove was a tall, tall tree. Not incredibly big and wide like a rescue base tree, but amazingly, fantastically tall. So tall, that it's branches rose just slightly above the rest of the forest, even while it's base was rooted a good fifteen feet lower. And from those branches hung vines, lots and lots of vines.

Those vines were draped through the great branches and over the boulders that ringed the cove, creating a sort of hollow space inside that was kept shady and dry. The vines caught and cupped rainwater, which eventually flowed into a small water basin located next to the tall tree inside. It would've been fantastic real estate, chock full of Pokemon, if not for the fact that two-thirds of the cove was shadowed in complete darkness, thanks to the vine blanket above.

Fortunately, though, Zoroark didn't mind the dark.

Cyndaquil followed Zorua, who had gone in first, cautiously lighting up a spark to show the way into Zoroark's home. He didn't think there would be much to burn, what with the rain outside, but nevertheless he was careful as he wove into the cave.

"Okay," he whispered, glancing once nervously out at the rain as he lowered the broad leaf to the ground. "I think we're good. Where's Zoroark?" He wasn't sure whether to confide in Zorua's Meema or not. Zoroark wouldn't tell anyone, though.

The two of them were in a more brightly lit patch of Zoroark's home, if a little damper. Zorua glanced around and listened carefully for any sign of her adopted mother, but found none. She twitched her nose irritatedly and crossed over to the dark side. Of the cove, that is.

The little Dark-type came back out chewing on a mouthful of Oran Berries.

"I d'ink 'e's 'on 'oo 'ik or'n 'erries! 'Ere's on'wy a 'ew 'eft!" she said.

Cyndaquil stared at her. "...What?" he asked doubtfully, watching blue juice dribble down Zorua's chin. "She went to pick berries?" He was used to Zorua's talking with her mouth full, but he still occasionally had trouble decoding her cryptic mumblings.

"Mm-hmm!" Zorua nodded, still chewing her mouthful of oran berries. Thankfully, she swallowed before continuing. "Well, we can talk here."

Zorua glanced around them, double-checking for eavesdroppers, before reaching into her rescue pack (scarf) and pulling out a small, flat, silver disc. At Cyndaquil's curious look, she tossed it open with a quick flick of her wrist, hidden flaps expanding outwards to make a larger silver disc.

"It's one of Buizel's tinkering inventions." she explained. "I swiped it from his geek closet."

The little thief proceeded to tap the silver disc directly in the center. An image appeared on the shiny grey surface, looking just like a reflection, though looking up there was nothing above but the layer of vines. The image was of a book cover. The same book cover that the two new recruits had seen hidden in the library.

"I figure if we can't lug that brick out here, we can lug that digitized brick out here!" Zorua exclaimed proudly.

"That's clever," said Cyndaquil, impressed, as he stared at the silver disc. His stomach turned uncomfortably at the idea of stealing, but he shook the feeling away. Now was not the time to be worrying about that; they had bigger things to worry about. He looked from the device up at Zorua, becoming serious. "So, you have noticed Sirai acting… different," he said.

"Mm-hmm." Zorua nodded. "Right after the lights turned on. She acts weird now, like she's only talking to us because she has to. But anyway, lets get back to reading this thing! I managed to get that disc to copy almost everything in that book! And before you say anything-it's not stealing if you put it back."

Said disc laid on the ground between them, and Zorua swiped a paw over the image of the book, the cover turning open.

Also ignoring Zorua's definition of "not stealing", Cyndaquil flipped past the first couple of pages of bibliography and began to read at top speed. It was the foreword that came just before the table of contents.

"...a significantly higher percentage of UNIQUE… what does that mean? Oh… Unprogrammed New Interactions, Qualities of Unknown Emergence…" Cyndaquil turned the page and read on. "Data origin unknown…?"

Zorua, squinting at the page, nodded along as Cyndaquil read and asked questions neither of them knew the answer to. When they reached the bottom of that page, she nodded and mm-hmm'd. Then, she took a deep breath.

"What the heck does that mean?!" she blurted out.

At the shrug she received, Zorua harrumphed and looked to the page at the right, which contained only a few blocks of words, squinting to read again.

"And so… I, as the leader of the research team responsible for it's creation, have volunteered with my closest friend and co-leader of the team for…"

She paused, and blinked uncertainly. "I can't read it. All the rest is blocked out, like swears. The only thing that isn't is the last word..."

Cyndaquil hesitated before asking, almost warily. "What's the last word…?"

"Goodbye."

AN: Rio here! I'm helping Quill re-post this chapter. So sorry about before, but it's fixed now!