Parallel Hearts Chapter 15

Morning came sooner for everyone, because they have to leave today. Mega's excitement fills the living room as he sees everyone waking up and descending downstairs from their respective rooms. Seeing Fast Star still in his sleep on Breaker's back, who's getting up as well, makes Fast Star fall off the tauros and land on the floor with a loud thud.

"Why do I see stars?" He asks, half asleep from the pain he had to receive to wake up.

The buizel attempts to shake his head to fully awake himself up and looks at the pokemon he was sleeping on, "thanks for letting sleep on your back, Breaker."

He nods in reply, "a friend of Mega's is a friend of mine," making Mega laugh as he sees his friends getting along just fine.

After taking their time to pack everything (for Mega is two bags stuffed with berries), everyone gets ready to leave the hideout. They look around to see the pokemon around them to scowl and glare from just being visible in the open, giving them goose bumps.

Rose closes the door behind them, "you know there's a hidden lock on the door, right?" Diggy asks concerning about the hideout being exposed by freeloaders.

This makes everyone look at each other and face palm themselves. Locking the door securely from the bottom section of the door, Rose says good-bye to the hideout, same with Knolla, Beauty, Mega, and Diggy. They're going towards their first destination would be at.

"So Zero, what kind of training did you get? And how did you meet Midori?" Mega asks to try making time go faster for them, making Zero and Midori pause by the question.

"Mega... I'll show you the training I've been through when we spar, ok?" Zero tries to change the subject, making Mega excited.

"Oooh I can't wait to see your new moves, just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine!" He then punches the air in front of him to flex the muscles in his arms.

"Rose, how do you feel about Mega?" Midori whispers to her as she looks for a way to pass the time, making the buneary blush at the sudden question.

"W-Well at first it was a small crush," she pauses to find the words to describe the new feeling, "but now that I know he's my dearest friend... I have a feeling it's more than a mild crush."

Midori smiles, but couldn't help but feel sympathy for the both of them, "we sure have fallen interests with idiots..." making the buneary to look at her with a questioning look.

"Zero doesn't know how I feel about him... he doesn't even notice when I stare at him lovingly, I'm pretty sure that's the same for you," making her sigh in defeat.

"Mega was in the Northern part of Pokeball Forest... for a year," this makes Midori look at her with questions in her eyes, "he's been attacked by predator pokemon every day, hardly had anything to eat, drink, and couldn't get a proper night sleep."

Midori feels sorry for the pikachu, she didn't know that behind that bright smile of his was pain and suffering. She wishes she could give him comfort, but she doesn't know how... maybe she can try and be a sister figure for him. She wants the clueless treecko to fall in love with her and Mega's his brother, it would make perfect sense, so she decides to try and do just that.

"Do you think I would make a great older sister?" She asks Rose, who nods in response. Despite the amount of time they've spent togther, she finds her to be someone easy to talk to like an older sister. "I want to become Mega's older sister," she says smiling to the buneary beside her.

Beauty wants to rest for a bit and have a drink, but she knew that won't happen anytime soon. She knows they're going to be under the chase by the group of pokemon from yesterday soon, they have to use this head start and where they're going to take shelter as an advantage.

She looks at Fast Star next to her, who's carrying his share of food over his shoulder, "so," Beauty tries to start a conversation with him, "what berry flavor do you enjoy the most?"

He turns to the right to look at her for a bit, "sweet," he says and turns forward. He then reaches into his bag and grabs an apple and munches on it.

She sighs because she knows this is going to be a long trip, so she decides to look around just in case the chasing group isn't around.

Breaker was carrying Knolla on his back, who's making sure they're going to the right direction according to the map. She has a compass with her and she enjoys the rays that the sun was giving out, "you're lucky your light or I would've made you get off of me." Breaker says to her.

"I'm glad you're kind enough to give me a ride," she says with a smile towards him, making him return the smile as well.

Diggy looks around to see if there was anything around, but everything was pretty much the same as before, "when are we gonna get there, Knolla?" He asks looking at the repeating trees around them that seems to go on, it feels like they're trapped to do the same thing over and over again.

"Relax Diggy, we'll be there in three hours," he hears a reply from Knolla; he then turns to the pokemon she's riding on.

"What?" Was all he asks Diggy.

"Why are you willing to give Mega a ride more than anyone else in this group?"

All the bull pokemon did was reply, "I like him a lot! He's very friendly with everyone around him and give off that aura that feels so... welcoming."

Diggy smiles at what the tauros is saying. Mega can make friends with just about anyone that can feel welcome by his aura. He wonders how he got such a smile on him though.

Mega could see the clearings as they exit the forest, "so what kind of training are we gonna do?" Mega asks in excitement about the new training regiment, making Zero look at him.

"The training exercise is power control," as he says this, he examines the pikachu for a second, "you have great stamina, speed, power, and endurance, but you need to control them one at a time." Mega listens to Zero's lesson, "you need to learn to control your power the most... I don't want you to end up doing what you did at the lake again."

Mega wants to control his power, but when he's mad enough, he's pretty dangerous, "I understand what you're saying... I don't want to repeat the same mistake again."

Zero smiles at his little brother and pets his head a bit, causing him to smile from the sudden contact, "good, because I'm glad to have you as a co-ed leader of MegaZero."

Three hours of almost complete silence came as they reached their destination, the sun was still out, and there was enough pointy rocks to do the training excercise. Mega lets go of his bags and starts to eat a sitrus berry from it.

"So... how do we train?" He asks Zero, only to see him looking at the others heavily breathing, except Knolla and Fast Star.

"We'll take five minutes of rest first," he replies and takes a cheri berry from his bag.

Zero eats any kind of berries and he feels like eating spicy first, he drank a bit of water in his canteen, "I'm gonna get some water, be sure that everyone is in check." He orders Mega and walks to the nearest stream.

"Knolla, you should walk or fly more often," Mega says as he looks at Breaker's tiring state.

"But I'm making sure that we're at the right spot," was the reply from her, "and I can't afford to be exhausted because that'll slow everyone else down."

Mega would be fine with this if the tauros is as well, "Breaker, are you ok with this?"

Breaker replies, "of course I'm alright."

"Are you going to join the training?"

"Yes, most likely... I need more stamina after all."

Mega has asked everyone if they're going to train with him and Zero as well. Pretty much everyone except Midori and Knolla are training with Mega.

When Zero gets back from filling his canteen with water, he sees that everyone, except Knolla and Midori, are ready for the training session, "ok, since this is gonna be a training session... there's something you should know, Mega, spar with me!"

Mega agrees to this and gets to his fighting stance, making Zero do a different fighting stance... a defensive fighting stance. Mega starts off charging at him with great speed, "Thunder Punch," he jumps and gets ready to strike Zero with his thunderous left fist, Zero just moves his right arm in the way of the attack.

When Mega's thundering fist makes contact with the treecko's he couldn't believe what he's witnessing, a blade-like leaf starts to form from his arm, torn through the jacket sleeve that's blocking his attack.

The shock on everyone's face was catastrophic as they couldn't believe what they're seeing, "h-how is this possible? I knew Z-Zero since we were younglings, and not once did he ever pull off something like this!" Rose asks Diggy, who wasn't surprised at the Leaf Blade wielding treecko.

"He'll explain tonight," was all he said.

Mega couldn't believe what he's seeing, what kind of training did he do to get this? He knows for a fact treeckos can't use Leaf Blade! That thought changes as Zero's other arm wielding another Leaf Blade at him, it was too late to dodge it as he receives the hit by the sharp-edged attack and was knocked back ten feet.

"Looks like I win, 203-125." Zero declares as he offers his hand to get Mega back up, only for the pikachu just pout childishly instead.

"No fair, you caught me off-guard in surprise with that Leaf Blade."

"You should learn to recover from stuff like that... because there might be opponents that'll take that opportunity to strike for the kill," Zero says and picks up Mega by the arm, "now that I trained your mind, it's time to train the body and spirit." After cancelling out his attack back into his arms, the jacket sleeve starts to form back, looking as though it was never torn from the beginning.

Zero's training method for everyone was very different than what they thought would be, instead of breaking the pointy boulders, Mega has to balance himself with his finger tips WHILE producing electricity to his hand to control his balance. Rose has to learn to be endurance by carrying a rock over her head for a long time while standing on the tip of the other pointy boulder next to him, Fast Star has to learn how to use a new move set through his arms while standing his ground against Breaker and isn't allowed to use any other moves until then. And Beauty has to learn to channel more power into her attacks by attacking a rock, but then, he puts a blindfold over her eyes so she would have to rely on her senses to hit her target.

Zero sighs at the progress everyone was making, they're getting better and better every second of the day... he's glad they're in Team MegaZero and couldn't help but laugh at this. Everyone hears the treecko laughing and assume he's enjoying their pain in this intense training. He looks at the sky to see the sun set and clap his hands indicating their training for the day is over, making them fall flat from exhaustion knowing they can relax now.

At night fall, everyone who trained were exhausted, "my bruises have bruises," Mega complains as he rubs his hands to soothe out the pain.

"I can't feel my arms," Fast Star says as his arms keeps channeling out of habbit now. His tries to relax the muscles only for them to tense up more and form water rings out of his energy. He then swings his arms and find it shattering a rock when it comes into contact. This shocks him as he looks at his arms in disbelief as they finally relax after finally releasing the attack.

"I need an oran berry," Rose complains she rub her limbs and ears as they can't pulsing from fatigue. She then lays on her back and find it quite comfortable compared to almost being sandwiched by two large rocks for over an hour. She then reach into her bag pulled out her be loved oran berry and eats it. She then spot a small rock and grabs it and slowly squeeze it. She looks to see the rock is cracking from her grip and toss it aside to finish eating.

"I want a nap," Beauty whines as she lays on her stomach and her legs stretch as far as they could be. She breathes heavily as tries to catch her breath from all the attacks she performed. She finds her surrounings to be clearer as relaxes, she can hear the other pokemon breathing much more clearly and how exhausted they truly are. She feels rejuvinated a lot faster than she expected as she sits back up despite the amount of energy she put out.

"I hope I'm stronger," Breaker says as he rubs his hooves against the ground. He notices how agile he's become in a short amount of time. Compared to when he first Mega, he can actually run a lot faster and be able to keep his pace with Fast Star. He buck his horns around and it easier to move his neck around.

When Zero sits in front of the fire to face them, "nice work everyone, you made excellent progress," he compliments the team in front of him. They thanked his kind words, "I think now is the time to tell you guys how I learned Leaf Blade," everyone who doesn't know stops and look straight at him, which made him sigh, "you see, I was looking for the perfect training ground when I stumbled upon a human..."

A treecko rises from the hills to see the beatiful plains in front of him, "it's good to be alive," he says to himself. He inhales the morning, but before he could exhale, a net comes out of nowhere and traps him. Someone raises him to come face-to-face, turning out to be a human.

She has long, silver blonde hair, she wears blue shades that seems to circle around her head her outfit consist of a white shirt with a large red 'R' on the center. She wears a large black jacket over her shirt as well as black pants and black boots.

There was a long stare between Zero and the human, making him feel uncomfortable, "listen buddy, put me down or I'll give a good whack on the face," he warns the human. He knows the human doesn't understand him, but he still thinks it's fair to warn her.

"You're perfect!" She shouts with a wicked smile, making him shutter.

She walks a good twenty-five minutes before reaching to where she was taking him, "look at your new home... I hope you like it."

Zero looks at what she calls 'home' with a look of disgust: there's a solid wall fence with barbed wires, with a tower at each corner, but what's inside was a single building. He doesn't know what's inside the building, nor does he want to, so he struggles under the net he's in.

"Sorry, but you've been chosen, by yours truly, as a test subject... don't you feel honored?"

When they reach the gate of wherever they are, she puts her thumb against some kind of machine, opening the gate, "you're gonna love your new home, we got the perfect place for you." Making Zero curious as to what she's talking about as they enter the building and through the halls.

The walking seems to take an eternity with his in this confined net until she enters a room with a giant glass frame. She opens the glass and gets him out of the net once she put inside it, "don't move if you want to say alive," she smiles as a sadist would give and closes the glass case, "run test number 421 to Project LB."

He notices that her yelling was actually orders towards people behind a glass wall, "but , we've done this project for so long, we need more time to make it safer for the pokemon experiments... or we'll keep receiving a dead pokemon at the end."

Zero could hear this and was shocked to hear that his life was on the balance between humans KNOWING that he is more likely going to die. He punches the glass frame in front of him to break his prison, but as he punches, the wall behind him launches chains each of his arms and legs before latching onto him. He feels himself being pulled away from the front of his only chance of freedom and forces him against the center of the tiny room.

"I don't care, Master Giovanni needs this experiment done successfully or we'll all be jobless at the end of this month," she yells at them. She is amused at the little treecko's attempt at escaping. The more she looks at the treecko's fighting chances, the more she likes him. She watches as the chains keeps him in place and signals the scientists to continue as plan.

The people behind the glass wall just sighs and proceed with Project LB anyway, "accessing data analysis. Begin scan now." The male scientist says as he presses a square button.

Zero notices a green light starts to scan up and down repeatedly, it hurts when it goes to his eyes, but he was told to stay still if he wants to stay alive. Not that moving is an option right given the situation.

"Data analysis complete," one of the researchers looks at the data with interests, then the male scientist gasps in surprise.

"What?"

"This might actually be our pokemon," he says in excitement, "he has the biggest percent chance of surviving the pain from Project LB by 23%."

Hearing this make the other scientist smile in delight and claps her hands together, "please let him survive... we need his powers to save ourselves." With that, they press the button to proceed with the project.

Zero could feel the floor beneath himself starting to glow as red electricity forms around him, pain starts going throughout his entire body. The pain feels like he's in the most exposure to a Fire-Type move, yet they also feel electric at the same time.

He screams in agony as the electricity tears through his muscles as it enter his body. He clunches his fists and strengthen his legs to fight against the pain, only to feel more than he ever thought possible. Is this hell? Is he going to survive this?

But all these questions lack importance compare to the next one that pops into his head. Will he ever see his brothers again? The memories begin to flashback to seeing Diggy and Mega, he holds onto the memories for dear life as the pain continues to go through his head.

All these thoughts and memories goes through his head all at once as the pain worsens within every passing seconds. He tries his best to endure it as much as he can. Then the pain starts focusing into his arms as the red electricity channels there. The rest of body felt relief as the pain resides, but his arms feel like they are about to explode from all the energy channelling into his arms.

It was then his arms starts to glow green and he looks at one of them to see blood burst through his arms as blades begin to form out of them. What's happening to him? What are they doing to him? Is this what the whole point of the 'project' they were talking about?

The scientists were trying to stop the machine immediately when they see the blades form out of his arms... but when they try to stop it, the computers starts to form sparks around itself.

"Take cover!" The male scientist shouts and jumps under a table for cover.

The female follows and pushes the tables to the side for better coverage. The computers explodes as tiny fragments flies all over the place, some of it breaks part of the table and hits the exposed male scientist in the face with a huge chunk of metal, causing him to lose consciousness.

When everything died down from the explosion and the sparks of electricity dies down... the female goes to the male and tries to shake him awake, "hey, are you okay?" She sees the blood dripping down his cheeks when the metal plate hit him in the head, then another thought came to mind.

She drops the scientist and look out the broken window. She couldn't believe what she's witnessing right now, test number 421 is still alive, she could see that Project LB was a success afterall! She smiles before she collapse from the fatigue that she just went through.