CHAPTER 9

I was feeling kind of embarrassed.

"Uh, Bounce? Could you please get my clothes?" I asked. I nodded in the direction of my clothes.

˂Clothes?˃ Bounce asked, confused.

"Yeah, you know those... um... materials we wear on our bodies?"

˂Oh,˃ Bounce said, nodding. ˂Sure. Be right back!˃

He bounded off, then came back, carrying and dragging my clothes.

I got dressed as quickly as possible.

"Look," I said, sighing. "We've gotta talk about what happened last night."

Blitz and Bounce both suddenly looked incredibly sad at the memory of last night. But they understood.

"Wait here," I told them. "I'll go get the others. College should be just about ending."

So I went back into town. I waited just outside class.

BRIINNG!

Everyone started piling out of class.

"Hey," I said to Lisa as she stepped out.

"Hey," she said back. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Where were you today?"

Michael and Boris stepped out of class.

"Hi," Michael said, grinning.

"Come on," I said.

"Where are we going?" Boris asked.

"To see some friends," I answered.

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"Alright," I said. "So what do we do?"

"First we wake up from this awful dream," Michael said.

We were in the fields. All six of us: Boris, Michael, Lisa, Blitz, Bounce, and me.

"We should try this morphing power," Lisa said.

"Then what?" I asked.

We were silent for a moment.

"Let's figure that out later," Boris said. "Let's acquire some Pokémon!"

˂We already acquired a morph each while you were gone,˃ Bounce said. ˂A pair of Nidorans appeared. One male, one female. We have not morphed yet, though.˃

˂I still don't understand why I had to acquire the female,˃ Blitz pouted.

˂Because I acquired the male,˃ Bounce answered.

"I know what you wanna acquire," I said to Lisa.

Lisa grinned. "Pikachu!"

Lisa's favorite Pokémon is Pikachu.

"My mother and father have a pet Pikachu," I explained to everyone.

"Okay," Lisa said. "Rachel and I are going to acquire Rachel's parent's Pikachu. Boris and Michael are going with Bounce and Blitz to find some good wild Pokémon to acquire."

We all just sort of stared at Lisa for a moment. She was acting like a leader.

"Pokémorphs," Boris said. "That's what we are. Pokémorphs."

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I knocked on the door. When it opened, my mother was standing there.

"Rachel!" she said. "How are you? Come in. Hello, Lisa!"

We came in. My father was on the couch, watching TV.

"Hey Rache," he said. "How's college?"

"Pika-pikachu!" Shocker ran into the room to greet us. That's what my parents named their Pikachu: Shocker.

Lisa pet him and acquired him, then we just sat down and talked about how college is.

I come to visit them just about every weekend, so they didn't think it was unusual that I had suddenly shown up with Lisa.

You don't understand how tempting it was to just tell my parents everything that had happened the night before. But some voice in the back of my mind told me not to.

Author's Annotation: I'm happy with the source of Lisa's morph. I'd already hinted that Lisa loved Pikachus, and having her stumble into one in the wild was too convenient for me. Thus, Shocker was born.

I don't think I used the "Rache" nickname much in the series. That's because it's easy and natural to say, but it looks weird in print. It's pronounced "Ray-ch", but I wasn't sure if it was spelled "Rache" or "Rach". Both don't look quite right to me so I avoided using it for the most part.

I don't think there was much parental involvement in this series. The Pokémorphs are pretty independent at this point, though I wonder how the series would have gone if they'd let their parents in on their secret.