Chapter 8

A Day In Someone Else's Shoes

Ice's Day 7:30-1:30

"Hello, professor, this is Ice. Alfa kind of slipped on some ice cream he dropped yesterday and fell down the stairwell. He's not exactly going to come to work today. He'll be able to play in tomorrow's match, but he'll be unconscious for the next, maybe, twelve hours." Said Ice over the phone. Alfa actually had fallen and was unconscious.

"Yes, ok. You will be coming to work though?" asked the professor.

"Yes sir. It's seven thirty, I leave at about eight thirty for the union." Said Ice as he cut the call. "Sicilia, can you keep an eye on Alfa. He slipped on last night's chocolate ice cream and fell down the stairs. He'll be out until seven thirty just check on him every hour please."

"Okay. I have some movies I want to watch, so can you just help me get him to the lounge?" she replied from across the hall.

"Sure thing." Said Ice as he ran through the hall to the mattress on which he had placed Alfa. He carefully removed the mattress from under Alfa and put it away. Then, he hefted Alfa up onto an ironing board with wheels he had brought from the storage room and took him to the lounge where he just left the ironing board after moving him onto a couch. "Done. I'm off to work as soon as I get some breakfast."

Saying this, Ice raced down to the kitchen and threw a few sausages in a pan of boiling water. A few seconds later he had breakfast in a plate and was eating it calmly. If there was one thing about food he was sure of, it was that you didn't eat too fast or you really would be sick. It had happened to Heath once. Mr. Hall had taken them to a restaurant and Heath had eaten his food too quickly. It had been amusing to see the hefty man, who was stronger than a rhypherior, to be rushing to the men's room every five minutes.

Ice finished his breakfast, and after washing his hands, he went out to his car, fished the keys out of his coat pocket and set off on his way to work. His day was relatively boring compared to Alfa's but he had practice to make him run about. Professor Hastings had been concerned about Alfa not being able to practice, but Ice had assured him that Alfa would probably come to work early and make up for it, if he was right. He decided to take a detour and find out how Alfa managed to catch up with him the previous day.

He swung around the cave's entrance and stopped the car. He got out and examined the wall. He saw one opening to his left. He glanced inside and watched the water flow in front of him. He guessed that the river was being fuelled by the rapids which flowed in Almia Lake. He had always wondered where they ended up. He realized that he had just proved wrong the theory that Almia River began in Crysta Cave. He got back in his car and entered through the gap, submerging the car and reaching the end of Crysta Cave far faster than he normally would have.

He was soon inside the union, at the partner pen, observing his brother's Swampert. His brother had four partner Pokémon there and he had decided to examine and research and further the database on them. Latios he could examine, actually, he could examine it after lunch. He opened his computer and began entering facts into his computer, he had a keen eye for random details. He soon found out that swampert's muscles didn't naturally from after evolution and just remain that day when he saw Swampert exercising. He realized from that one observation that Pokémon had to work to stay strong, as did humans. Pokémon trainers kept their Pokémon fit by battling, and Pokémon rangers by getting their Pokémon to help them.

About Swampert in general he found out that their arms tensed right before they attacked. He observed this as Swampert attacked the target on its pen's wall. Swampert typically didn't seem like ground types but people would be proved wrong when one used earthquake or mud shot or any other variety of ground type moves.

After observing Swampert for a little bit longer, he moved on to Sceptile. He looked at its arms first, realizing that there was something wrong when he only saw one leaf blade on each arm instead of three. All of a sudden, two more sprang out from behind it. So Sceptile could conceal two of its blades. Interesting. Another thing he observed was that Sceptile generally stood straight, but when it was about to attack, it bent forward ever so slightly. All of a sudden, Sceptile turned around to a patch of burnt grass in its pen. It stood tense for a minute as a fruit swelled up on its back. It plucked the fruit and planted it in the middle of the burnt grass and used solar beam on the patch of grass, diverting the light into the patch. All of a sudden, the grass started to reverse color from black, to yellow, to green.

So Sceptile could heal dead grass instead of just planting new grass there like most grass types might do. He headed away from the pen and went to Blaziken's pen. It was standing in front of the target in its pen, where it was practicing Blaze kick. Nothing new was seen in the next few minutes by Ice, until Ice looked at its arms. Where there should have been flames, there was nothing. All of a sudden, Blaziken looked out the window. It saw Ice looking at its wrists, so it twisted one, and flamed appeared on it. Seeing this. Ice rapidly noted it down in his head. He moved on to Aggron, his brother's newest partner.

There weren't many people who could observe an Aggron's daily habits up close, so not that much was known about Aggron as compared to other Pokémon inside the union. The most common fact was that it ate metal. Ice sat down outside its pen and looked through the window. Aggron was retracting its tail. First, the one or two spikes went in, then the outer plating mover inwards covering up the inner plating. Like and antenna being put away. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Twelve twenty.

'Damn! I spent nearly three and a half hours observing Alfa's Pokémon!' he thought to himself. He opened his laptop, cataloguing his research, before he switched his phone on. There was one message from Sicilia. She was saying that the friend she had visited the day before was looking for a place to stay for a few weeks while her parents were out of town, and she was wondering if Alexis could stay with them. She had already packed her things but was looking for a place to stay. Sicilia said that she had given Alexis his number and told her to call him for confirmation, and that if she could stay with them, then could he bring her over at lunch.

Ice smiled to himself as he dialed Sicilia's number.

"Hello, Sicilia, I got your message. Het the guest room ready. And by the way, check with the sleep-seeker if Alfa's time has changed." He said over the phone.

"Thank you so much Ice! Alfa's readings haven't changed. I'm just going to get the guest room ready. Thanks, bye!" replied Sicilia before she cut the call. Ice had just turned the screen off when his phone began to ring. He glanced at the time; exactly twelve thirty. He picked up the call.

"Hello, is this Ice Snowbelle?" came a feminine voice from the other end.

"Yes, and who might this be?" asked Ice, amused that she was right on time.

"This is Alexis Lilies, Sicilia's friend. Did she tell you why I'm calling?" replied Alexis.

"Yes, she left me a message. You can stay with us. Have you packed your things?" inquired Ice.

"Yes. When will you come to pick me up?" asked Alexis. "We can't exactly get to Almia Castle."

"Good. Tell your parents I'll be along to pick you up in around fifteen or twenty minutes. I'll see you soon." Said Ice, as he headed downstairs, cutting the call as he finished. He went to his car and started the engine. He pulled out of the parking lot and went down the union road, not hurrying for no reason. He had the roof down and the wind was blowing. He smiled as he let the wind ruffle his hair. It was a nice day to be driving along union road in a convertible. He pulled into Altru Park and parked in the building where he used to live.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor where apartment number nine would be. He found the apartment and knocked on the door. A woman who looked like she had been packing, carrying a few pairs of socks, came to the door.

"Hello, who might you be?" asked the woman.

"I'm Ice. I'm one of Sicilia's older brothers. I'm here to pick Alexis up. She's staying with us while you'll be on vacation." Replied Ice.

"Yes, thank you so much for having her, I'll just go get her." Said the woman who turned out to be Alexis's mother.

"Not a problem." Said Ice as the Mrs. Lily went off to find her daughter. She soon returned with a young girl about Sicilia's age, who had reddish hair and brown eyes. She was wheeling one largish suitcase and carrying a backpack.

"Hi Ice." Said Alexis.

"Come on, let's get going." Said Ice as he took Alexis's baggage while she went and said goodbye to her parents. She soon returned to the door and followed Ice to his car. He loaded the trunk and the two of them got into the car.

"Alexis, can you dial Marnier's pizza from my phone please, we're ordering lunch." Said Ice as he turned out of Altru Park. She dialed the number and soon the call was coming through the car speakers.

"Hello, this is Ice Snowbelle, I'd like on order off the Snowbelle usual air delivered to Almia Castle please." Said Ice over the phone as they cruised along Union drive

"Sure thing Mr. Snowbelle. It should be there in one hour." came a male voice from the other end. Ice cut the call and started speaking to Alexis.

"Okay Alexis, we're going to drive into the river, so don't freak out." Before she could say anything, Ice turned off the dock and hit river mode. "Alfa and my cars can traverse bodies of water from underwater, and like this. We're going to roof ourselves and go underwater in the cave. Too many Zubat to go roofless."

They reached the mouth of the car and he submerged the car. He steered it through the river to the edge of the river and climbed onto the land inside the cave. It wasn't safe to go back through the rapids. He steered the car out of the cave and onto the snowy ground of Hia Valley. It was a good thing the cars had come with ice and snow tires. He drove the car all the way back to the castle and soon the he was having lunch with Alexis and Sicilia.

Sven's day 2:30-7:00

Sven was back at the Chroma Highlands, dealing with the supervising the demolition of the CES labs. They had been shut down due to the Blast Fuel experiment. According to Keith, that had been quite a fiasco. He was watching as the men were carrying out the last tank of Blast Fuel to a tow truck. Where the cars should have been, there were four more tanks of Blast Fuel. They were to be carried out for safe disposal before the demolition began. The men loaded the tank onto the trailer.

All of a sudden, a wild Skarmory flew right beside the tanks, piercing all of them. They started to leak a bit. It wasn't much, thought Sven. It could be patched up easily. Just as he turned to tell one of the men to get a patch, a Charizard flew by, presumably chasing the Skarmory. Unfortunately for Sven, the blast fuel had leaked to the floor and had pooled together, making a sort of a fuse, and Charizard's tail had lit it.

All hell as he knew it broke loose as the tanks exploded with a blinding light. Two or three of the rock faced wall on the sides of the upper levels of the highlands had been destroyed, but the ground under Sven and his Luxray had collapsed, dropping them into the Chroma Ruins.

"Hey guys, I'll find my way outta here. I know the place pretty well. You get a cement tanker and a crane and fix the hole. We'll work on the demolition once I'm out." He yelled up.

"Okay boss." Yelled back one of the workers.

Sven headed to the left as he tried to gauge where in the Chroma Ruins he could be. He started to look for any trace of a hint. He realized that he might have gotten lost in one of the levels he hadn't been to. He turned this way and that way, determined to find his way out of there. All of a sudden, he found himself face to face with a wild Bastiodon.

"BAASTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!" it roared at him.

"SHUT UP!" replied Sven, not in the mood to get annoyed by the Bastiodon.

"DONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" it roared at him again.

"SHUT UP!" Sven yelled back, resisting the urge to hit it in the face, knowing it would only break his hand. All of a sudden, the Bastiodon turned around and fled in the opposite direction. He looked around, noticing that sparks were flying from Luxray's fur. He turned around headed on the opposite direction of the Bastiodon.

He soon found himself on a path he vaguely remembered. He tried to remember where he was. Then it hit him. He was on the path to where the Luminous Crystal had resided when it had been the Shadow Crystal. He remembered that there was a way out through that gap and headed that way. He noticed that something was different about the path. There used to be a statue there.

He entered the room where the Shadow Crystal used to be, and saw something he would never forget.

"WHAT THE HELL." He exclaimed. There was a wild Registeel rampaging around the room. He remembered that the statue had had the same pattern at its base that Registeel had on its forehead. He guessed that it had been disguising itself all this time and it had woken up. He launched a capture disc and attempted to capture the legendary Pokémon, nearly breaking his styler a couple of times. In the end he managed to calm it and released it, heading out of the ruins, using the ladder in front of the Altru Shack.

He walked across the highlands to find that his team had successfully fixed the hole in the floor.

"Let's start demolishing." Said Sven. Soon there was nothing left of the labs. 'Blast Fuel's a real pain in the ass.' Sven thought to himself. He headed back to Altru Park, to hear an alarm wiling inside Altru Mall. He ran inside to find the jewelry shop being robbed. He kicked the thief between the legs from behind and kneed his back, knocking him down. Sven put his foot on him and took his sack, tossing it back to the owner.

"Get up, and get out." Sven shouted at the thief. He pushed him a bit as he scrambled to his feet and fled.

"Thank you mister ranger. You get married in park, a while ago, yes, I watch from shop window, yes. I give you present for your wife, yes. Anything from the shop, yes. I thank you very a lot." Said the shopkeeper. Sven guessed he was foreign from the bad English and his accent. The man came to Sven with a jewelry box.

"Your Lady, she like this, she came someday with two other girls. I give this to you as gift, yes." Said the man.

"It's a ranger's duty to help the public in any way possible. No thanks is necessary, I'll pay for this by card." Said Sven.

"No I insist, yes." Insisted the man. After arguing for a few more minutes, Sven gave in and took the necklace thanking the man and headed home. Wendy was just going to love this.