"Owww..." That single uttered sound was enough to describe how all four felt.
"What happened?" Black groaned, opening his eyes and pushing himself up off the floor.
Lucas sat up as well. "I have no idea."
"Where are we?" Cheren was the first to notice that where they were was not the dark messy lab of Professor Elm. Rather, they were in a clean, tiled, well-lit area.
"Where did you four come from?" A new voice asked the group. Looking up from their spot on the floor, they saw a nurse in an outdated uniform. None of them were quite sure how to answer that question, and thankfully, she kept speaking so they didn't have to. "I should have seen you all pass by, after all, I was at the counter the whole time. What did you do, sneak in?"
The boys looked at each other, unsure of what to say. "Um..." Barry began. "We uh... is this the Pokemon Center?" The boy chose to go with the age old adage, when in doubt, change the subject.
The young woman blinked in surprise. "Y-yes... what else would it be?"
Barry smiled sheepishly. "O-oh, right. Of course. Pokemon Center. I knew that."
"Care to explain how you got in?" She seemed very intent on getting the answer to that question.
Lucas, deciding that honesty was the best policy, answered. "We have no idea."
She frowned. "Is that so...? Are you four pokemon trainers?"
"Absolutely!" Black now stood, and the other three followed suit. "My name is Black, and I'm from Unova. These are my friends, Cheren, Barry, and Lucas. Cheren's from Unova too, and the other two are from Sinnoh."
The nurse stared at them blankly. "Oh really... Do you mind if I see your trainer cards?"
"Oh, sure! I- oh, um... We left them... uh... where we came from."
Now, the woman took a step back. "How about your pokemon?"
"Our pokemon?" Barry echoed. "Of cou-" His eyes widened. "Wait a second... we... we left them too!"
The nurse seemed quite concerned with their behavior, and Cheren could see she was getting nervous. "If you could just let us use the PC, we can get our pokemon," he suggested calmly.
"It's right over there," she responded, gesturing a few yards away to a machine in the corner. "If you'll excuse me for a moment..." With that, she walked off.
"Wow... this PC looks older than that machine we were using in Professor Elm's lab!" Barry remarked.
"But cleaner," Black observed.
"What was that, anyways? What happened? Why are we here?" Lucas questioned.
"Those are all good questions," Cheren responded, turning the PC on, "and we won't get an answer until we know where we are and have some control of the situation. I think you guys overwhelmed her a bit; you shouldn't just burst forth with things like that, Black." The aforementioned boy averted his eyes in embarrassment. "Once we get our pokemon, we'll head out and figure out where we are. Then we can try to contact someone we know in the area, okay?" The other three decided to go with Cheren's plan.
"Invalid log-in. Access denied," the PC chimed.
"T-type it again," murmured Lucas. His feeling of trepidation was growing. Carefully typing out every character brought no better results. The PC denied access again.
"This is bizarre. Why isn't it letting us-"
"Excuse me, but are you four pokemon trainers?" An unknown voice resounded from behind them, and they turned with a start to see two large men studying them. The nurse stood a little ways back. Her eyes were narrowed.
Black, the least intimidated of the group, faced the men without fear. "Yes, we are," he responded clearly.
"Where are your IDs or trainer cards?" The man on the left asked.
"We don't have them with us at the moment." Cheren's tone was steady and calm, and he moved to stand between Black and the two men, all three of whom seemed a bit too confrontational for his liking.
"And your pokemon?" the man on the right asked.
"Once again, they aren't with us. The PC wouldn't let us log in to get them."
"Let me try," the nurse suggested, walking up to the PC. "What is your log-in information?" Cheren responded accordingly, then made a mental note to change his password.
"Invalid log-in. Access denied."
The men moved a bit closer to the four boys. "A-are you sure you typed it right?" Lucas asked. "Try again, please."
She tried two more times. Neither were fruitful.
"Where did you four say you were from?" One of the men grumbled, staring hard at the boys.
"What's it to you?" Barry's temper, which had been steadily heating since the PC had first denied access, had now reached a piping boil. "Look here, we're trainers in a public area! There are no laws denying access to Pokemon Centers to anyone, whether they have IDs on them or not! Or even pokemon, for that matter! What's next, am I not allowed to go into a grocery store because I don't have my ID? Why don't I fix this problem by going out and catching a pokemon right now! Or maybe I should steal one! Would that make things better?"
Lucas had stopped listening and placed his head in his hands about two sentences into the rant. Cheren stared at the blond in horror, while Black had been frantically making motions to Barry to shut his mouth. Unfortunately, no matter who wished Barry's words could be taken back, the deed was done, and the four swiftly found themselves back on the ground; this time, outside of the pokemon center.
"We'd better not see your faces here again, or the police will deal with you!" The door was slammed, and that was that.
"Good going, Barry," Lucas grumbled.
"Yeah yeah, just get off." The two Sinnoh natives were on the ground, one squarely on the stomach of the other. Black helped them up, and they found themselves on an unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar city, their only possible refuge denied them. "Sorry guys. I... I guess I shouldn't have said that," Barry sighed.
Black laughed quietly. "It's nothing I wasn't sayin' already in my head."
"I certainly wasn't," Cheren growled.
"Sorry, sorry!" Barry put his hands up in mock surrender.
"Well... what do we do now?" Lucas asked. It was one o' clock in the morning, and the streets were mostly silent.
"I would say we should stay in a Pokemon Center, but unfortunately, we cannot." Cheren was, to say the least, displeased with his current situation.
"Yeah, yeah, that was directed to me. I get it. Let's just go sleep on a bench or something. The weather's nice, we can figure out where we are and what to do about it tomorrow."
Black nodded. "Sounds like our best bet. Let's go... uh that way, I guess?" Tired and grumpy, the group found a single bench underneath a scraggly tree across from a drug store on the not-so-nice side of town. Packed in like sardines in a can, they somehow managed to fall asleep.
a.n. Thank you for reading chapter two of my story. All reviews are much appreciated, and I hope you have enjoyed what you've read thus far.