Aenrhien: Blargh, sorry. DX I tried to make it as sensible as possible, but obviously it didn't work :I I also tried to hop around the viewpoints to where the 'action scenes' were, but OH WELL. Pity is, I'd planned a little hopping here but with your comment, I had to... uh... compact some scenes. x.x And an add to Author Alerts! *drowns in Pokéballs and nanites*

Alaxbird: Heck yeah, you're up here! ^^ Every time someone reviews, adds an Alert or Favourites I'll reply ;)

There may be a little implied Holix in here. If you want stronger stuff, GO ELSEWHERE. Holix will only play an extremely tiny part in this... like sprinkling salt on your bowl of food.

Chapter 8: Nanite Free

Holiday's View

It was surprisingly easy to wind my way through the muddy valley of Route 215. The bog was generally ankle-deep with thin log bridges spanning the deeper parts.

I walked to a small signpost at the corner of a bend in the road. It read:

Back is Route 215

Right is Route 210

At least that leg of the journey was over. I slumped to the ground underneath the sign and pulled the satchel off my shoulder, dumping it onto the grass next to me. I rifled through for the berry pouch, pulled out another Oran berry, and ate it. Sitting there, savouring the flavour, watching the sun sink below the treeline, I let my thoughts wander. What was this place? There hadn't been any sign of missing details or such, so it couldn't be a dream. It seemed like one though; the boy Dusk, the 'trainers', the bog, the large, strange grey birds I saw flying in flocks up high – their constant, high-pitched "Stree! Stree!" ringing loud. And the constant nagging at the deepest parts of my mind, the feeling I'd seen it all before... when I definitely hadn't.

I realised my eyelids were drooping shut. I needed to sleep soon. I flicked them open and looked around. The sky had turned a beautiful mix of pale blues and rich pinks, the clouds catching the light and changing them to that hue. Always there, always watching, that huge mountain rose, twin peaks jutting into the sky.

A black blur flew across my vision.

I sat up hurriedly, but logic told me it couldn't have been Six – I'd know the ninja anywhere. I quickly packed up the berry pouch, slung the bag over my shoulder and stood up. The faintest smell of something like fruit hung in the air. I sniffed, and found it was coming from the right, in the trees. I followed my nose; the small berries weren't exactly filling.

Walk... walk... I looked back.

I couldn't see the path anymore. Way to go, Rebecca.

Turning back the way I came, stepping forward, walking a while, I realised I'd passed that tree branch that looked like a dragonfly four times. Circling. That faint scent lingered though, sweet and strange. Like a pitcher plant... There were oversized birds. What if...?

I walked past a tree trunk and saw the venus flytrap sitting there, jaws open, each flap at least three feet in diameter. Heart rate increasing substantially, I picked up a fallen tree branch and held it by my side... just in case... but it was a plant. But it was huge... Trying once more to retrace my steps, I caught a glimpse of the path, the setting sun illuminating it orange. I let out a relieved sigh and started towards it.

Hisssss

Something slammed into the small of my back, and whipping around I saw the flytrap. It was dangling from a branch above my head, and it glared at me with two beady eyes. It cackled and hissed, waving its leaves like arms. EVO!

I brought the stick up, trying to hit it between the eyes, but it was fast. My weapon hit the tree branch where its head had been a moment before, and I whipped around to see the Carnivine leap into the air off the ground and whirl its red-and-green roots around, said roots glowing green. Hell no was it about to hit me with whatever it was doing.

I ducked under it and slashed at the attack with my branch, but the move kept going and sliced the weapon cleanly in two. Crap.

Leaping up, I ran blindly through the undergrowth, having to leap into the air or duck more than once to avoid a fallen pine tree or overhanging branch. The creature's hissing persisted, and I ducked behind a tree, pressing my back to it. I tried to slow my breathing, straining my ears as the noise stopped. I couldn't hear a sound.

"Well... you're tricky prey..."

The hissing voice cut through the silence. A sharp intake of air rushed through my nose. Prey? For... what? Surely not the EVO... Did it talk? EVOs couldn't talk. But Bobo could talk... How did it sneak up so fast? I moved my foot to the right and bumped something. As quietly as I could, I reached down for it – a fist-sized stone. It was almost perfectly spherical, with bulges of moss, lichen and mould covering its surface. It would have to do, as there was no time to scrape off the cushioning plant matter.

The voice came from the left around the tree. "Where are you? Why won't you just be my prey... I've just come out of hibernation, and I want food..."

This was way too creepy already. I leapt out from my hiding place and hurled the stone at the monster before turning to run. A sharp cry told me I'd hit it, and silence instantly fell. That wasn't natural. Had I concussed it? It was so huge...

I turned back to face the spot. The furry rock was the only thing on the ground. There was no sign of the giant plant.

As I turned away, something caught my eye. A quick flash of red. I walked over to the rock, and picked it up. Turning it over, nothing seemed different. I could've sworn...!

I brushed a piece of mould away, and in the quickly fading light could just make out the dull red of sandstone shining out. However, it was slightly rusted and cool, like metal. Heart rate increasing, I pulled away bits of moss and lichen. When most of it was gone, Rex's words flashed through my head.

'...spheres, red on the top and white on the bottom...'

I stood up, the object clasped in my hand. It was exactly like the description, except for the dark blue with two red patches. I felt the weight of the metal sphere. Something told me the EVO wasn't around any more...

I rifled through the satchel that had, by some miracle, managed to stay on my shoulder throughout the episode, for the Town Map GPS. Quickly finding my way back to the path, I pitched camp in a sheltered spot, not visible from the road.

Time to spend the night in the cold.

Rex's View

The spare room was... well... free, so Professor Rowan let me hang there.

Lying on the bottom bunk (falling off again wasn't exactly a welcoming concept), I was fingering a Pokéball (as Lucas had dubbed it). I wanted to know how the ten-foot-tortoise Leafy, aka Torterra, could fit inside. They'd said the data got broken down into electrons and stored in the special glassy material, which was like a synthetic Apricorn shell. When I asked, they said an Apricorn was a fruit that could be hollowed out and used to store a Pokémon, and someone called Professor Matthew Oak designed the first Pokéball with the synthetic shell, and his descendant (Professor, again) Samuel Oak was the leading Pokémon researcher in the Kanto Region of the Pokemon world Aera. Quite the mouthful.

The data was stored as ones and zeroes in the system, which had a memory of up to one hyperbyte (When I asked, they said it was 1,000 terabytes, which was 1,000 gigabytes. Ugh!), and the data of each atom was recorded. Which also meant that anything from a person to a tree could be kept safe... or tortured in oblivion to oblivion. Trainers had to sign a contract and all this stuff to say they wouldn't be evil and so on.

With a sigh, I flicked the capsule onto the desk across the room, where it rolled and became still. The next thing I flicked was the light switch, and the second I closed my eyes I was asleep.

.

..

...

Well, isn't this strange.

Walking through trees, I loop around the same circuit four times and see a giant plant, turn to walk to a path and get attacked by the giant plant... Fight back, run away, hide behind a tree. Pick up a mossy rock. Attack the plant. Run away. Turn, pick up the mossy rock, take the moss off. Oh, a Pokéball. Walk away. Set up camp. Sleep.

...

..

.

I woke up very suddenly and completely. I thought the dream through. All my dreams were strange lately. The monster, the blue Pokéball, the white cloak behind me that looked too familiar –

... I saw it every day, would know it even if my amnesia kicked in. That was no cloak.

I ran to get Lucas.

Holiday's View

Sleep wouldn't come. I tried polishing the metal orange-sized ball, but the rust stayed put. I carefully put it in the corner of the small, one-man tent. Something had been nagging me since the EVO attack, and I couldn't place it. What was it? What was the unturned stone? ...Ha ha, the irony. Two things, really. One that I knew was how it hadn't attacked me again after I'd thrown the stone/ball. It escaped, yes, but why not strike? What was the power that it attacked with – turning five-centimetre-thick roots into deadly knives? A dull throb settled somewhere in my brain from all the thinking, and trying to ward off the oncoming headache, I pulled out my hair elastic and let my head flop back onto the makeshift pillow that was the satchel. The biting cold of winter was everywhere, and I kept my lab coat on instead of sacrificing the garment for a softer headrest. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come, if eventually.

"...Where... there... what'd you say now?" A far-off voice floated through the still night and the fabric tent. A faint reply came "There! Over there!" I tensed. Two conflicting emotions, fear and... something else, battled for dominance in my thoughts. It couldn't be...

The first voice came again. "Where, Rex?"

My heart skipped a beat and I had to force myself to calm down. Rex was just a name. There could be plenty of Rexes. 'Rex' replied "Sure, over here, behind that tree. I thought you said telepathy existed, no? So explain to me why I saw this crazy dream where-" the voice stopped, maybe two metres away. No mistaking it for Rex now. I had to hold back from leaping up and running to him. Soft footsteps padded through the grass, getting closer all the time. Rex's voice came. "Doc? That you?"

I opened my eyes. Why bother not responding? The facts fit. I sat up, crossed my legs and opened the zip enough to look through to the brown eyes and orange goggles I had come to know so well. "Rex?"

The exultant reply was immediate. "Doc! You wouldn't believe all the stuff I've seen today! I saw EVOs – Pokémon, technically – that these kids my age controlled, made them battle, make earthquakes that didn't wreck the buildings next to us, and they saw my builds! Lucas's jaw dropped, you should've seen-"

I raised an eyebrow. Rex stopped. "Tell me who Lucas is and what a Pokémon is. Also how you knew how I was here, where you came from, how you got here – everything." I dropped the eyebrow and smiled. He sighed.

"Sure, but you'll have to come out here first."

I climbed out with the satchel and rusted ball, quickly packed up the tent and shoved it inside the bag, tied my hair up and faced Rex. A boy about his height and age stood next to him, and in the night could just make out a beret and scarf. The first thing the other boy did was say "Hi- Uh, Rex said we'd be looking for someone, are you them?" I nodded.

Rex turned to a steadily blushing Lucas. Teenage boys. "Lucas, this is Dr Holiday, Doc, Lucas. Now, pull out that fancy psychic fox again and take us back to the lab?"

Instantly there was a flash of red light and I saw a silhouette before it faded. Lucas said "Hey Zara, Teleport us back to the lab, please."

-Yes, Lucas-

I had to stop myself from crying out. Why the heck was there so much telepathy in the past two days?

A purple glow surrounded us and as it faded, the dark of night was replaced with the blinding glare of fluorescent lights and whitewashed walls.

"Lucas! You're back!" A girl in a white beanie ran up to Lucas and gave him a brief hug. His cheeks tinged pink. "Yeah, I'm back, Dawn. Rex, do the honours?"

Rex sighed. "This is Doctor Holiday, Doc, this is Dawn" –point to the beanie-wearing girl – "and Professor Rowan." Point to a man with a giant moustache and an old-fashioned suit under a travelling cloak. Dawn instantly looked to the Professor and asked "Do we have another spare room?"

At least an hour later as I was dragging myself to the room number 206, I'd introduced myself and had an update on what a Pokémon was. I thought back on the conversation...

"You're from a planet called Earth, where you have different countries, continents and states, lots of political systems, billions of people and hundreds of currencies?" Dawn's cry pretty much summed up the expressions on the trio's face. "And monsters you call EVOs instead of Pokémon?" I nodded.

Lucas frowned. "Hey, what's up with the rusty Great Ball you've been holding for half an hour?"

I frowned at the 'Great Ball'. "I thought it was a stone that I threw at a monster I ran into. The monster disappeared afterwards."

Dawn squinted. "No flash of red?"

I shook my head. "No, there-" actually... there was! I stopped mid-sentence and confirmed the red instead. The girl held out her hand. "Great Ball, please."

I handed it to her and she immediately pointed the white circle away from me and pressed it. A beam of red plasmid light shot about two metres and materialized into the flytrap. "That...!" I breathed. The flytrap merely looked at me and hissed. The professor looked mildly puzzled. "You fought that?" At a nod, he continued "That is a Carnivine. You caught it. It's your Pokémon."

An outraged cry of "How come she gets a Pokémon?" from Rex and bad memories with the monster made me decline. "Dawn, you have it. Or can you release them into the wild?"

She nodded. "I'll release it in the morning and break the Ball. It's barely functioning. I haven't the slightest clue why or how it was caught... and I've already got one. They're fairly common. Now, what is a nanite?" The monster gave me a strange look as it returned to its plasma-like state.

Obviously they didn't have nanites.

I finally got to my room on the second floor, unlocked the door, dumped the bag at the end of the small bed there and flopped onto the bed fully clothed, instantly asleep.

Scratch. Scratch.

Was something scratching?

Scratch. Scratch.

Yes, something was scratching.

Scratch. Scratch.

"Go away," I mumbled.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

I forced my sleep-drugged eyes open and looked at the door.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

"Can't it wait?"

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

Obviously not. Pushing myself up, I stretched my cramped body and dragged my feet over to the door.

Wrenching the door open, I found a blue and black panther in mid-paw at the door. A star-shaped tuft of yellow fur tipped its tail and the same yellow fur lined blue ears. Miniature explosions of black fur sprang from the shoulder blades and pelvis, with a large one shooting backwards from its head. It blinked, made a very human-like guilty grimace, and meowed.

I smiled in spite of myself. The sound was so normal.

The cat smiled, pointed at me and then down the hall. I blinked, but quickly grabbed a hair tie from my pocket, closed the door and followed it down a flight of stairs, along another hallway and then outside, where Rex, Professor Rowan and Dawn were waiting.

The cat bounded over to the girl and rubbed its face against her shoulder. At the same time as she whispered something to it and it ran off, Rex saw me and ran over.

"Finally, Doc! We've been waiting for-"

"Five minutes, in which Bolter went and fetched her," Dawn interjected.

"But it was forever! And I want to get a taco!" Rex whined.

The professor walked over. "We're going to the Pokémon Center for breakfast. The Center acts as a restaurant, hospital and Item shop all in one. They are very useful. And Rex," he said, turning to the teen, "There may or may not be tacos. You'll have to ask."

I nodded and turned to Dawn. "So, which way is it?" She opened her mouth to respond, but Rex cut her off by building the 'Rex Ride' and calling "Then let's go!"

Dawn pinched the bridge of her nose. "Uh, Rex? Two things. First, the Center is that orange building about a hundred metres away. Secondly, if anyone sees you like that, they're probably going to assume either you're a Mew or Ditto and try to catch you, they're hallucinating, or you're half-Pokémon – and try to catch you. Not very good options," she blatantly commented. Rex looked puzzled. "What's a Mew?"

"A Mew is an extremely rare Pokémon that can use the move Transform, and turn into anything. Ditto... that's all it can do. Transform. It's pretty rare too," the answer came.

I could see the mental cogs in Rex's head moving, and he finally sighed and disassembled the hovering motorcycle, walking with the group to the Center.

Halfway there, the sound of Rex's footsteps stopped and I instinctively turned to see the boy still, head flopped back, blue nanite lines creeping up from his jugular vein to his eyes, which were white. Like how Six had described Rex's possession by One...

The other two turned, and when Dawn saw Rex she gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth. Suddenly, the lines faded away, his eyes turned normal, and he fell forward to faceplant into the road. "Darn!" exploded from his mouth. I instantly knelt down next to him. "Rex?"

He smiled, despite the obvious bruise appearing just below his hairline. "Doc... Six's here too."

I blinked. "Here? Here meaning..."

"Sinnoh, yeah."

Here you are, I merged the chapters! 8D

~SK