Author's Note – Alright, I give you all permission to blow my brains out with Bazookas. Please do, at least the guilt will go away!

I will admit it: I am the laziest person I know. I must suffer from chronic laziness or something. Bleh. Sorry. I'm evil. Kill me. Please.

Or not.

It's up to you.

Anyway, during my long silence, however, something miraculous happened: I got hit with a serious pang of inspiration. Where before I was worrying about what I would do for the series, now I have a full 50 or so chapters roughly sketched out in my mind. So ha!

I also lied about the preview at the end of Nightmare, Part V. 005's little adventure will come soon, but not this chapter.

Thank you for being so kind, all of you. I apologize to people who's stories I haven't gotten around to reading yet: They're still in my inbox in a folder called 'Fanfics'. I haven't forgotten you!

Now let me shut up and get one with the story!

-R. T.

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"Hold the left wall! I think she's caving in!"

"They're breaking through! The east end can't hold them back much longer!"

"North end is breached! Everyone, fall back to the south end!"

Screams and commands cracked through the air like lightning, resonating off the cave walls. Kip turned wildly, blasting any in front of him with psychic energy. Lily stood beside him, attacking the infiltrators in the same wild manner. Gaby and Kieran were at the east end. Cries from children calling for their parents, friends calling for friends, and the moans and screams of the dying echoed throught the cavernous halls.

Suddenly Kip was caught off guard by a larger-than average Kangaskan, and with a pang of horror saw the club wielded by it's Tauros Pokémorph's owner sailing towards his head. With a gut-wrenching crack, it collided with his head, and he knew no more.

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Six months earlier…

Seth grumbled irritably as he slipped his dirt-covered jeans back on. He could hear the girl's giggles from all the way back there, and Sparks' rolling eyes didn't help much either.

"Shut up!" He called ahead, trying to silence the laughter. Unfortunately, this seemed to have an opposite effect, because now Kip and Kieran were forced to pause while Lily had a downright laughing fit.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Lily gasped, straightening herself. "It's just…"

Lily was cut off by a sharp popping noise and a groan. Where Seth had been standing there was now only a pile of clothes, and banging his head against a tree was a pink-furred and very angry Mew-Seth.

"Oh brother…" Kip said, smacking his forehead with his hand and turning his back on the scene. Lily went over to gently pry the near suicidal morph away from the tree while the rest continued on.

Six months, and they were still without a destination or goal.

Six months, and they were still getting used to the effects the incident had had on them.

Six months, and everyone still chuckled a little whenever they heard a popping noise.

The 'Nightmare' incident, as they had come to call it, had had a profound and lasting effect on some of their members. Some of these effects, like Kip's newfound psychic powers, were good. Most, however, were bad. For example, Kieran's mystical black orb that he removed from the Gengar's corrupted heart was a mystery to all of them, and Kieran spent many hours brooding over it's purpose. Lily was mostly unchanged, but occasionally dwelled on the image of Seth's mother and the younger Sakio, wondering what went wrong. She was too afraid to ask Seth about it, though. Gaby had been off for a while and suffered from terrible nightmares, but as the months passed they slowly faded away.

The most obvious change, however, was Seth's. They gains were easily outweighed by the downsides, and after a week of spontaneously popping from a completely human form, to a morph form, to a Pokémon form and back again every hour or so, Seth had had enough. He'd begged Silversong and Gaby to try and come up with a cure, or at least an explanation, and Silversong had come up with this:

Sakio had obviously done something to Seth's genes when he was still in the womb, not wanting his son to be forced to live the life of an outcast. However, the research on this sort of topic was extremely limited, so while whatever he did worked for the most part, remnants of the Mewtwo DNA still resided in his genetic code. Also, any human-created DNA would have been easy to get rid of, while the natural strands would be harder to thwart. Therefore, the lab-born Mewtwo DNA would have been stripped from the pure Mew DNA, leaving only that there.

Seth verified that all that was conceivable and made sense, but was still not satisfied. Even if the Mew codes had been in his genes, why had they awakened? Gaby had come up with that answer.

"It's simple, really," she'd said. "Basically, when your body was put under a lot of stress and knew it was going to die, your brain subconsciously activated the Mew part of you. You have a totally human form because that's what the majority of your DNA is made up of, and all morphs change back and forth between their forms when they're first born. You usually gain control in about two weeks to a month."

Well, that mystery had been solved, but the problem of Seth's spontaneously changing still existed. If Gaby and Silversong were right, then there was no way for him to regain normality. In addition, he was 5 months overdue for being able to control his transformations, and he was tired of having to redress every time he changed from a Mew into a human. He'd abandoned wearing a shirt altogether after four months.

Seth was also as out of control with his new powers as he was with his ability to stay in a form. Gaby had at first had tried to teach him how to use his psychic abilities. He followed her instructions perfectly, but when she told him to try lifting an empty Pokéball, only Gaby's reflexive shields saved them all from death by tiny fragments of red-and-white ball. Surprisingly, when she had him try again in exactly the same way, he could only make the ball twitch. The third test (which she only called a test afterwards, though everyone knew she was just frustrated) was the only one which had results that made sense. When she whipped a rock at his head, he immediately stopped it in mid air and caught it reflexively, without realizing how he did it.

"Dammit! When is this going to stop happening?!" Seth shouted angrily after he'd turned back and pulled on clothes again. "I can't live like this!"

"And I can't live with your whining all the time!" Kieran muttered. He was in a foul mood already from missing breakfast, and Seth's complaining wasn't helping. Surprisingly, Seth shut up, and they walked in silence for a full ten minutes before he suddenly stopped. When Kieran rolled his eyes and Kip opened his mouth to say something, Seth just held up a hand and closed his eyes in concentration.

"He's a sharp one, isn't he?" said a voice. It was male, near adult maturity, and was very close.

"Yeah, he looks really familiar, too…" said a second voice. This one was a girl's, a young teenager's, close but also vaguely recognizable.

"Show yourselves!" Seth shouted. The others except for Kip had heard them speak as well, though Kieran looked very puzzled about the identity of the second speaker. Seth's call, however, was answered in silence.

Lily scanned the area. They were surrounded by mountains to the east and south, with a forest about a quarter of a mile to the west. Close to midday. No one else around, and nowhere to run if this was an attack. The tense mood, however, was broken when a girlish scream rang out from behind some ferns.

"KIERAN!!!!"

And the next thing they knew, Kieran was on the ground, alarmed and scarlet-faced, with a girl on top of him, hugging him hard.

"Ohmygod! I can't believe it's really you!" The girl said happily. Everyone stared, too startled and confused to move.

"Um, who ar-" Kieran started, but then he looked directly into her face and blinked a couple times. Then his expression turned from alarm to surprise. "Kati?!"

"Way to blow our cover, Mitamuro!" said the first voice as Kati rolled off the stunned Mightyena morph and turned back to her ex-hiding place. Now there was a boy standing there, shaking his head in embarrassment and annoyance. Kati scampered back over next to him, head bent a little and face slightly red.

The boy was clearly a Sandslash morph. His hair was chin length, dark brown, and cut jaggedly as though it was done by hand without the luxury of a mirror. He surveyed the crew as they surveyed him with light, brownish gold eyes. He was fairly muscular and very fit, and at 6' was rather tall for a mouse Pokémon. He looked a little odd, even for a Pokémorph: the right half of his body was human, while the left half was more Pokémon. For example, his left hand was a claw, like his relative Pokémon's, but with 4 digits instead of two. They were also more separated like digits, which would grant him an impressive grip on just about any surface. His right hand was human, other than having longer and sharper nails. His back was loaded with the hard brown spikes of the Ground-type mouse Pokémon, as good as any armor you could find anywhere. His left foot was like his hand: four digits, shorter claws, inhuman gripping capabilities. The spikes on his back prevented him from wearing a shirt easily, so instead he just wore a long, heavy brown coat and sturdy brown pants. Strange crescent-shaped brown markings covered his sides, though many scars fought for space among them. His lack-of-shirt revealed that he had no nipples or navel, confusing all but Seth, who knew this marked him as a lab-born. It was a common trait to have those healed over because of the immune system boosts they received while in the tube. The others just knew he couldn't have been a natural born like Kieran and Kati because of the blue barcode tattooed in blue ink on his stomach.

When they turned their eyes to Kati, they didn't feel so bad for not recognizing her: she looked vastly different from the short 10-year old girl they had met almost a year ago. Her hair was black at the roots with yellow tips, falling down to her shoulders. Her eyes were the same, the brilliant mix of yellow and black they'd always been, bangs mostly covering her right one. She wore loose jeans and a plain black t-shirt over her small frame, though she'd had a couple growth spurts since the last time they'd seen her, which, much to Kieran's dismay, made her taller than him. Kati, unlike many Pokémorphs, decided to wear boots over her furry and inhuman feet, instead of just going around barefoot. She had evidently grown incredibly stronger as well, for instead of a Pichu tail and ears, she now sported those of a Pikachu. But apart from her drastically changed appearance, the biggest difference was the lack of childishness in her eyes.

"Sorry, sir…" Kati mumbled, but glanced up with a sheepish smile at Kieran none the less. "It's just that, well, I know these guys. These are the ones that saved Patch."

Those words seemed to lighten the mystery boy's serious attitude, and he instead eyed each one of them in turn. Normally, the group would have fled or started asking questions, but since Kati was with the unfamiliar guy, they decided to shut up and stay put.

"Gabrielle, right?" the boy said, addressing Gaby and extending his hand. She blinked in surprise, then fixed him with an iron stare that usually sent Kip running for cover.

"It's Gaby," she answered slowly, shaking his hand warily.

"I'm Tyson, Tyson Valeblade," He answered. He paused for a moment, then smiled awkwardly. Gaby was slightly taken aback: he looked a lot like Kip when he was feeling out of place.

"Whoa, Seth! When did you get a tail?" Kati said. Apparently she'd just noticed the black-and-red-haired teenager standing in the background, trying not to be seen. He stood up straight and stiffened when she ran up and hugged him too.

"Uh, a-about six months ago," he answered when she released him.

"I'm sorry, but how the hell do you two know each other, and why were you hiding from us?" Lily asked, looking from Kati to Tyson.

"It's a lot to explain," the Sandslash morph said. "As painfully cliché as it is, you might want to sit down for this. But first….Do you have anything to eat?"

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"What is it with us and giving new people food we really don't have?" Gaby muttered as she sat down on a log. They'd relocated to the forest and managed to scrounge up some grub for Kati and Tyson to snack on, leaving their supplies worse then pitiful. Now they were all sitting and waiting for their explanation.

"Alright," Tyson started. "I'll be blunt. Kati and I are part of an underground organization of Pokémorphs, humans and Pokémon who's main goal is to destroy labs that use science for malevolent purposes. We also try to rescue and recruit as many victims as possible…We mostly target laboratories that are trying or have succeeded in creating Pokémorphs and artificially created Pokémon."

"Geez, when he said he was going to be blunt, he wasn't kidding…" Kip mumbled. He was silenced by a shushing noise from Kati.

"Whoa, so you're like a bunch of freedom fighters who wipe out people like Sakio?" Kieran asked.

"James Sakio?" Tyson asked, looking at Kieran in mild confusion. "How do you know-"

"He's the one that made me and Lily what we are," Gaby said. "He's trying to get all of us now. We've thwarted him before, screwed up a lot of his plans and his lab."

"No way! You're the guys that did all that?" Kati asked in awe, though the group had no idea what she was talking about. Tyson also looked at them in mild shock and respect.

"You guys are fairly famous at the Org," he said. "Your multiple attacks on Dr. Sakio's lab and battles you've fought with the whole RAM group are common talk."

This surprised them all a fair bit, and silence fell for a minute as they all contemplated how they were so well known without knowing it themselves. Then Kip spoke up again.

"So what exactly do you two do, and how did you find us?" he asked.

"We send spies out to locate the labs and find out what they're doing. That's what most of our human members do, unless they're scientists themselves."

"You guys have your own docs?" Lily asked.

"Of course," Kati answered. "Just because there are some evil scientists out there doesn't mean they're all bad, or that science is bad. That's like the prejudice Pokémorphs get: people see one bad one in the bunch and they hate the whole race."

"Anyway," Tyson continued, "once we know where the labs are and how to penetrate them, the higher-ups put together parties of humans, morphs, trainers, and Pokémon to destroy them. The battles are…very dangerous. Often in a team of 15, only half will make it out." He trailed off into silence, so Kati picked up where he left off.

"When we're at the labs, we try and free as many of our kin as possible. Since they're our priority, most of them make it out alive, and a lot are so grateful to us for rescuing them that they decide to join our cause. We don't force them, though: a lot just go their separate ways…Still, most of them come back because they can't find a safe place to live anyway.

"After everyone's freed from the lab, we gather all hard copies of the info, burn any duplicates or backups, then BOOM!" She said the last word loudly and snapped her fingers, firing a spark into the air with a loud crack.

"What she means is we blow up the lab and get the hell out of there before the authorities arrive," Tyson explained, smiling. "Then we just take the info back to headquarters, pump it into the computer, destroy the originals and go about our normal business."

"Some life you guys lead," Seth said. He'd been quiet this whole time, but the fact that he hadn't spontaneously turned into a Mew through the whole explanation had boosted his confidence. "So how'd Kati get involved in this?" He turned to Tyson. "I know you're a lab born, so you were probably rescued and decided to join the…Org, did you call it? But I don't understand how Kati got involved."

"I…" the Pikachu morph started, eyes cast to the ground. She paused, then looked up and tried again. "About three months after you left, people started coming to our house. Dad always got nervous whenever they came, but he refused to tell me anything. A few weeks later, some people from the Tonen lab came and tried to kidnap me for research. Dad…they got him while he was fighting them off." Her voice broke here, but she continued on. "Patch managed to escape, but they got me and took me back, locked me in a cage and ran tests on me. A little while later the Org came and saved everybody, and I decided to join.

"I had nowhere else to go, you know? And guess who told the Org about the Tonen lab and what they were doing? Patch!" She said, brightening considerably. "I found him there right as I arrived, and this wannabe tough guy was looking after him!" She said, beaming at Tyson.

"Mitamuro…"

"Sorry, sir."

"I'm sorry, but why are you telling us all of this?" Kip asked. Tyson and Kati both blinked, as though he had asked a stupid question.

"To put it simply," Tyson said, and now the seriousness was back. "The Org asks you to join them."

Gaby politely asked for the two to leave them and come back at nightfall (which surprised them all, for they'd never heard Gaby ask for anything politely in their time together). The pair agreed and left, disappearing into the foliage and out of sight. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she sighed heavily.

"Well…What do you all think?" she asked, gazing around at them, looking for input.

"Sounds great! We should join them as soon as freakin' possible!" Kieran burst. Clearly, he'd been wanting to say that ever seen he'd laid eyes on his old crush.

"I don't know…" Kip said hesitantly, "It's a big decision. I don't imagine they like people leaving once they get involved, for security purposes and everything. If we decide to go, we're stuck with them for life."

"Then that's a life worth living for!" Lily said aggressively. "I mean, come on, what have we done in the past year? Run around, busting up that bastard's lab every now and then, causing a bit of ruckus-"

"And saving a town from impending doom!" Kip countered, matching Lily's passion.

"Well, right, but other than that, we've done nothing of important consequence in the grand scheme of things!" Seth answered before Lily could even speak. Everyone stared at him, and he grinned sheepishly.

"Where on earth did you learn all those words?" Lily asked incredulously.

"I lived with scientists, remember?" He answered, and Lily just shook her head.

"I dunno, Kip has a good point…" Gaby said. Kip smiled, glad that someone else was on his side. "We commit to this, we commit for life."

"You serious, Gaby? You'd rather wander around pointlessly on useless little adventures rather than actually make a difference? 'Cause if so, you're not the fighter I thought you were," Lily said, and then, in a tone of finality, she stood up and said, "I'm going. I don't care what anyone else says, but I'm following them. Who's with me?"

Kieran bounced up onto his feet immediately, and Seth rose shortly afterward. Gaby glanced at Kip, then stood up slowly. They all waited for Kip to move…but he didn't.

"I'm sorry," he said. Lily nodded understandingly. He was, after all, the only one of them that could back out. The rest of them would be outcasts wherever they went because of their features, but Kip was still human. He could go out and live a normal life.

"It's alright, Kip," Seth said. It was painful for him to go along, but because of the Nightmare incident, he no longer had the same freedom as Kip to walk around as a human in the normal human world. "We understand."

"Yeah, we'll contact you when we can!" Kieran said, in an effort to comfort him.

"Aw, come ON!" Gaby said loudly, and the rest jumped and looked at her. She grabbed Kip's arm and tugged him upright, making him look at her in confusion and bewilderment.

"Gaby, it's my decision," Kip said sadly, casting his sight to the ground.

"No, it's not! You're sticking with us!" She said defiantly, stamping her foot. Kip's face grew more red as she continued, "You've been us this far, and when we finally get a chance to do something that matters, you're just gonna take off on us and leave?"

"But-"

"No 'but's! Kip, I thought you were stronger than that."

"I'M NOT!" He yelled, so loudly that a flock of Spearow took off in fright from a nearby tree. The whole forest seemed to go silent. "I'm not. I can't handle it, Gaby, I just…I thought I wanted to be a hero 'n all, and I though I could do it, but…I'm…I can't."

He tried to tug his arm away, but she wouldn't let go. Gaby's eyes were a burning, flickering sea of colours, her expression irritated but not angry, as if she still didn't believe he was serious. She tried to tug his arm up again, but to no avail. She repeated the step, and again Kip remained immobile. Finally, she tugged hard, eyes gone red in anger, and Kip yelled and blasted her off with a surge of psychic energy. He stood upright, looked at Gaby, who had flown into a tree and was staring dazedly at him with eyes coloured light purple in confusion and tinted with pigments of light green for sadness.

"I'm…sorry," Kip mumbled, ashamed. Then he picked up his backpack and ran, glancing once behind him before he disappeared from sight.

The rest stood dumbstruck. Of all the people who could behave irrationally, none of them had ever expected Kip to be the one to react as such. True, he'd been acting strangely for a while now, but they had all assumed he'd snap out of it and return to his normal, naive, happy self. Gaby was still staring at the place where Kip disappeared, tears welling in her eyes. The rest averted their gaze, allowing her as much privacy as they could as she screamed and telekinetically launched object after object after him, slipping into Pokémon languages that, now that Kip was gone, the whole group could understand. After several minutes, she stopped, wiped her burning eyes and faced the rest, acting as though nothing had happened and Kip had never been there.

"Well, then it's decided?" She voiced, the language out of Pokéspeak and back to normal. "We all go forward and make a difference?"

Slowly, everyone nodded, and Gaby sent out a telekinetic signal for Kati and Tyson to return. They did shortly, and said nothing about Kip being absent; by the sad look in Kati's eyes, Gaby had already warned them not to mention his name again.

"Well, shall we go then?" Tyson said cheerily, lightening the mood somewhat with the after comment of, "It's only a two day's hike, and once there, we'll feed you all so much you'll forget what hunger feels like!"

The group collectively moved to collect their things, but paused again for a giggle or two as they heard Kati shriek in surprise and Tyson laugh as with a short pop, Seth turned pink and fuzzy and buried his head into a tree.

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Sweet, it's done! Shorter, but done. Better than nothing, right?

Now for some more info. I have become addicted to World of Warcraft. Don't hate me. Play on the server Velen and add Arthiria. Also, Hellsing FTW!

Anywho. Wow, Kip left! Surprised me, wasn't in my fifty gazillion pages of planning! And in spelling 'gazillion', I learned that Word recognizes it and automatically corrects it. Neat, it corrects incorrect words! Whoa, that's confusing!

BLAH.

If you're reading this, I love you for being so faithful. The offer to kill me is still open!

Questions? Comments? Death threats? I love being made to feel like writing is still worth something (even if it is a death threat!) Please review.

And finally, I feel it's important to get it out why I managed to begin writing again. There's this kid, right? His name is Lawrence, and he's super. He also loves to quote everything I say and imitate me. He's read RG and has been quoting back at me lots of embarrassing typos and decent segment's I've written in the course of writing this fic. I think it's his repetition that's subconsciously guilt tripped me into writing this again, so I thank you, Lawrence. Seriously.

And Joey? I MISS YOU! TT

Much obliged and ever so grateful you're still with me,

R.T.