Forbidden Fusion

by killalao

explicit multiversal adventure with lots of cute girls.

28. Back to the past

-chapter 28-

The next morning the sun shined brightly through the curtains as it rose to start the day, an ironically beautiful start to what was sure to be a hard day of fighting the space police, but for now, all was quiet, for now, as I cracked my eyes open and looked around the room to gauge my surroundings, since once again, I wasn't really familiar with the room, after taking a moment to process what happened the night before, and I realized where I was, I tried to free my arm without waking Phoebe up. Of course, she was using my arm as a pillow, so this quickly proved impossible. After I inevitably woke her up trying to free myself, she quickly scanned the room as well and then turned around to face me. "Goodmorning." She said in a tired, but cheerful voice as her eyes met my own.

"Morning baby girl." I replied in an equally tired fashion.

I let out a sigh, still trying to wake up a bit more before softly saying "This bed's better than the one we had at the house."

"And the one at the house was way better than the one at that little shack." she replied in a soft, tired voice.

I quietly agreed.

"So . . . . . . here we are again, one of those times we wish we could just lay here forever." I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

"Yep, every morning." She said in a soft, loving tone as I held her close.

"Hehe...yeah, seems like it." I replied.

We couldn't lay there forever, but we layed there for awhile until we eventually decided to start the day and turned on the tv to help us wake up a little faster.

"Do you think they serve breakfast?" She said out of the blue.

"Probably." I replied.

"Do you think they have orange juice?"

"More than likely." I answered.

"Unless oranges don't exist here, you like orange juice?"

"It's not as good as oran berry juice, but it's ok."

"If you say so."

"So when do you want to go down then?"

"Ohhh, I was thinking right now actually."

"Ohh, ok."

"Maybe after a shower..."

"Ok."

"You wanna join me?"

"Sure."

She stopped for a moment, then said "On second thought, I think I'd rather shower by myself this morning."

"Ok..."

"After yesterday I think we need to take a break for a little bit."

"Ohhh come on, Pheebles." I complained, more annoyed that she changed her mind at the last second than because she said no, it wasn't the first time she had done so.

"Ohhhhh get over it." She replied in a somewhat sarcastic tone, before giving me a quick kiss on the cheek and crawling out of bed.

"You'll be fine." She said as she turned around to look at me one more time before entering the bathroom.

Eventually, after we both showered and dressed, which took a bit longer than when we showered together, we headed downstairs for breakfast, where we discovered that oranges did infact exist in this world and there was plenty of orange juice available, along with pancakes, muffins, cinnamon rolls, doughnuts and lots of typical breakfast food. The effect of having the same thing for several days in a row so anything different tastes 50 times better than it usually does, was still in full swing. Normally, for instance, I don't really care much for cinnamon rolls, but today they just looked amazing. Anyway, while we were having breakfast, Vince approached us, and began to talk about what today's events would entail.

"Sleep well?" He said as he approached our table.

"Best we've had in awhile.", said Phoebe as she looked away from her breakfast to greet him.

"The gloves are off now, the space police are really starting to look for you, they know who you are now so if they find you they won't give up till they have you in chains.", said Vince in a serious tone as he took a seat at the end of the table, borrowing a chair from another nearby.

"What about the attack on their HQ?", I felt the need to ask.

"Yuri is working out the minute details as we speak." He stated in an affirmative tone.

"It's not going to be easy you know? You're going to need to have that place locked down, before you can safely use the portal. They will cut power to it if they believe it will be used for what they deem to be "Illegal operations". So like it or not you need our help, because somebody is going to need to secure the generator room."

"Sounds fine with me, If you feel you can handle it.", I said, not having seen any of their abilities yet, I wasn't sure if the resistance was a competant set of warriors or just a bunch of fools who didn't know what they were getting into.

"Don't forget this isn't just for you two. We're doing this to free our prisoners. They're our priority." He replied in a somewhat authoritative tone.

"We understand." Phoebe chimed in.

" As soon as they're free we'll help you take the generator, but first, you need to get us in there." Vince added once again.

"Shouldn't be an issue, we've done that before." I said, feeling confident that this wouldn't be anymore difficult than last time. Vince replied with a warning.

"But they're going to red light you, after you raided that first time on another world, and then convoy yesterday you're much worse than a common tresspasser now they've put two and two together, If they see you comming they'll send borgs after you."

"What?" I exclaimed out of interest.

"Cyborgs, part man, part machine, they're the elite solidiers of the space police." Vince answered.

"So what we're in a terminator spin off now?" I jokingly stated, not quite expecting him to understand the reference. It caught me a little offguard when he replied. "Not quite that powerful, but still, up there, especially in numbers."

"They have terminator here?" I said in even more interest.

"Yep, came out in 1985." He replied.

"Hmm..." Not knowing the year it came out, I quietly wondered if it came out the same year on my world too.

"Anyway we're working on plans to get to the hq undetected." He quickly changed the subject back to the matter at hand.

"How?" I asked, once again quite curious.

"Simple really, I'll take a 'll load it where their bugs can't see, and then we drive up next to the hq. I'll drop you and a few others off, then I'll go and hide somewhere off the grid and come back later to pick up the prisoners." He said while playing around with an extra set of silverware.

"You're not comming with us?" Phoebe chimed in again.

"I have to keep moving, if the van's compromised the prisoners won't have any escape route. Obviously sitting out front of the station is not the best idea." He defended.

"Yeah, that's true." Phoebe agreed.

"So how many prisoners are we dealing with here?" I asked.

"17." He replied.

"Dam, you're going to need a bigger van." I commented, to which he replied, "We'll bring in a second, but only when they're clear to escape. Anyway, once you free them, I'd recommend raiding their armory."

"Right, I think we found their armory last time too didn't we?" I asked Phoebe, looking back on our last raid on a space police hq, in fact, to free different prisoners.

"I think so." Phoebe agreed.

"Ok then, and then the prisoners will be armed and able to help." I agreed that raiding the armory was a good idea.

" Correct, they'll help you secure the portal so you can leave this world." Vince stated.

"Sounds good." I replied.

"But how will they know?" Phoebe asked.

"There'll be others comming in with us that will inform them." I guessed.

"Right, it shouldn't be an issue. Just make sure they get there." He reassured.

"We will, don't worry." I said.

"I'm not, after yesterday." He agreed.

"I knew that was just a test." Phoebe said, making me wonder why she didn't bother to tell me.

"We had to see if the rumors were true, sometimes the space police tend to . . . . get things wrong. You have to admit that a report of being attacked by a giant metal dinosaur is kind of . . . . . out there." He defended.

"Yeah . . . . , I guess so. " Phoebe agreed.

"To people that don't know what pokemon are." I added.

"Yeah..."She agreed once again.

"Anyway, we still have some things to finalize before we're ready to go, but once Yuri gives the ok, we're outta here."

"And when will that be?" Once again I had to ask, this world was ok, but we needed to continue our adventure so we could get home.

"Whenever our informant decides the time is right." He replied.

"What informant?" Phoebe decided to ask.

"He's a low level staffer that works at the hq, a janitor basically, who's secretly keeping tabs on their operations." He answered.

"Ok. We'll just have to see how this plays out." I said, realizing we didn't have much choice if wanted to get out of this world.

"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.

" Right, well, I'll be back later when we're ready to attack." He said as he got up from the table.

Me:" Allright then."

He proceeded to leave the cafe in an inconspicuous manner.

"Allright, that takes care of that, so now what?" I asked my wife, still trying to figure out what to do until we were needed.

"Well I want to finish eating and head back up to the room before that lizzard guy sees me, is that ok?" She answered as her attention returned to her breakfast.

"Makes sense to me." I agreed, somewhat thankful that he hadn't shown up yet.

So we finished our breakfast and then returned the room, where we watched tv for quite awhile.

"You sure you don't want to go exploring? They said the whole block was bug free?" I asked my beloved, not really wanting to watch tv all day.

"But then they won't know where to find us when they're ready to attack the base." She replied.

"Well they can't expect us to just hang out in the room all day do they? You sure you don't just want to go for a walk or something?"

She sternly refused ,"No Cj, not when it could compromise the entire mission."

I let out a sigh...bored out of my mind.

"It's not so bad...we can snuggle." She said as she snuggled up next to me nuzzled me, and then proceeded to kiss my cheek.

I let out another sigh.

"Pheebles, come on, let's go." I said in a more commanding tone as I got up from the bed and headed for the door.

"Wait.." She said before I could open it.

"What? Come on."

"There's a laundry room downstairs."

"So?" I replied, unsure what that had to do with anything.

"Can you wash my dress so I don't have to go down naked?" She asked, out of nowhere in a completely serious tone, that said her dress was still stained with blood from yesterday.

"Ok fine, hand it over." I replied, realizing this was as good a time as ever to do so.

She took off her dress and handed it to me then sat back down on the bed in her cute little panties. By this point I've seen her naked so many times it wasn't really that big of a deal.

"Don't be long ok it's cold in here." She said before I could leave, covering herself up with the blankets.

"Allright, you just stay there then, i'll be back in a few minutes." I said as I opened the door.

"Ok" She replied.

So I went downstairs to the laundry, threw her dress into the machine, and went back upstairs while it was still being washed.

"Ok now what?"I asked as soon as I entered the room.

"Where's my dress?" She asked in return.

"It's still in the machine baby girl, i'll have to go back and get it in a few minutes, you should know by now it takes a little bit." I explained.

"Yeah, ok, come snuggle with me again, I'm cold." She asked in her "cute" voice.

"Are you wearing your coat in bed?" I asked, noticing how puffy she looked under the covers.

"Mhm." She cutely answered.

"Okay." I said as I kicked off my shoes and crawled in bed beside her.

"Don't even think about touching my boobs." She decided to say.

"I wasn't until you told me not too." I replied.

"We did it twice yesterday, we're not going to today." She insisted, I understood why, and I was glad that she was exercising some control, but, dam was I bored.

"Well you're just determined to make this the most boring day ever aren't you?" My boredom led me to ask, because she seemingly didn't want to do anything at the moment.

"It's not going to be boring, just wait until they call us to help them raid the base." She defended.

"Maybe we could think about where we're going to end up next?" She exclaimed in an optimistic tone.

" Well . . . where do you think we'll end up next?" I asked, somewhat curious.

"Well...what if we end up, in a world...hmm . . . . . . . . . just a second, let me try to think like Nina here . . . . . um. . . . what if we end up in a world where everybody is a wooden doll? " She finally decided to say.

" Well that would be weird." Was all I could think to answer. My thoughts turned to all the human characters in the old thomas the tank engine series.

"How would they talk if their mouths don't move ? " I asked.

" Telepathy?" She answered.

"So a world full of psychic wooden dolls? Um . . . . . . ok, how do they move around? " I asked out of curiousity.

"Like a doll Cj . . . , they can walk around on their legs."

"But what if they don't have knees?" I asked, still thinking of the thomas figurines.

"But they do." She insisted.

"Oh so they have full articulation and what not?"

"Mhm." She agreed.

"Those are fancy wooden dolls."

"Yep. . . . Oh and the world is ruled by a giant carpenter."

"Hehe, really?" As if the dolls themselves weren't silly enough.

"Mhm, he calls himself king Woody." She said in a joking manner.

"ookay." I said, trying to grasp the concept of this world.

"Well where did he come from?" I asked, wondering why this was the only "human" in a world full of dolls.

"Another world of course, where he is normal sized." She answered

"How'd he get away from there?" I asked as I wrapped my arms around her.

"He drank a magic potion . . . . from the wizard."

"Ooookay if you say so." Her story was getting a bit too fantastic for it's own good now, portals are one thing, but a teleportation potion?

"Well where do you think it will go?" She asked, seemingly confident I couldn't come up with a better story.

"Well . . . um, what about, a world where . . . . . cars race?" I struggled to come up with an idea.

"That happens in every world that has cars. " She replied, not the least bit amused.

"No, I mean, the entire world is a raceway." I struggled to explain what I meant.

"We've been there, it was boring." she insisted, remember that video game world we went to which was agree ably quite boring, the world was devoid of life and there wasn't much to do but watch the cars race, and due to the video game world having slightly different physics, you couldn't even enter the cars, or otherwise control them, they were basically movie props.

"Well, we couldn't drive the cars in that one. I'm not talking about a video game world, I mean, a world where society itself is based on the outcome of races." I insisted, trying to make my world sound more unique.

"What does that even mean?" She asked in asked in a way that suggested she was genuinely curious.

"It means, every year, they have a huge race to decide who is the president of the world, and they have highways that span the globe, with no speed limit. " I said, further elaborating on my original idea.

"And cars that can break 300mph on a regular basis, and there's parking lots everywhere, and racetracks, and everybody is a car nut." I continued to describe my fantasy.

"So it's your version of heaven basically?" She asked.

"Only when you're there with me." I said.

"Awwwe, Cj." She reacted in her usual degree of cuteness.

"Is my dress clean yet?" She asked.

"We'll give it another ten minutes or so ok?" I insisted, knowing it probably wasn't ready yet.

"Ok." She answered.

"Then you have to move it to the dryer?" She asked even though she already knew the answer.

"Yeah, dam I forgot about that. . . . uh, yeah I guess I do." I awkwardly replied.

"But then what if we end up in that world and we win the presidential race?" I asked, trying to change the subject back.

"That won't do, we would still have to leave to get back to Charley." She insisted.

"Yeah, you're right, or we can lead them in a war against the space.."

"Not that idea again." She interupted.

"Cj, there's no way that would work." She insisted.

"Oh yeah? Why not?" I asked, curious about what she would answer.

"Because the space police would still have a lot more people, they'd all be slaughtered." She replied.

"Yeah, but the space police's organization is terrible, I mean, it took them almost 2 days to find out who we were." I said, trying to defend myself.

"It's just too big Cj." She insisted.

"You'd have to take them out world by world, and for worlds like this that would take awhile, and if they start sending cyborgs like Vince said, I don't know how effective my powers would be against them, if their brain is half machine I might not even be able to knock them out." She said, sounding somewhat worried about today.

"Oh it'll be fine, if you can't take them out, we'll just let magnum get near them and they'll probably short circuit and explode." I said, trying to reassure her that this would be a cake walk.

"I don't think that will work either, they've probably thought of that already." She replied.

"Maybe they haven't? We won't know until we're there."

"Maybe . . . . . I don't know Cj. "

"You worry too much."

"I do not, I worry just enough to make sure we don't do something stupid."

"I ain't too sure that works too well but, "

"It works." She interupted.

"No, no no no baby girl, sometimes you do stupid things on your own."

"Not all the time." She defended.

"Yeah, but, just enough to make me right." I replied.

" Yeah, you're right." She let out a sigh.

We watched tv for a few more minutes before I went back down to move her dress to the dryer, after that, I went back up stairs to spend more time with her.

It was a slow day, but her dress was finely dry just in time for lunch. So we went down together.

"It's still damp, you didn't dry it enough." She complained.

"Ohhh, it'll be fine, atleast I got the blood stains out." I said while I followed her out of the room.

"Yeah, but you didn't iron it so now it's going to get all wrinkled." She continued.

"I couldn't find the iron, anyway, come on, let's just get something to eat." I said as we headed down the hall to the staircase.

"Besides it was your idea to have me wash it for you." I defended as we continued down the hall.

"I couldn't do it myself you idiot." She shot back as we rounded a corner towards the staircase.

"Yeah, ok, but I still think we could've done something besides watch tv for the last few hours." I said as we continued to approach the staircase.

"Yeah, probably, but we didn't know they weren't going to show up yet." She said as we reached the staircase.

"That base is our only way off this world, we can't risk it." She defended her decision as we began to head down the stairs.

" What? You think the moment they find out we're not in the hotel they're going to give up and proceed with the mission anyway?" I said as we continued down the stairs.

"Well, I don't want to inconvenience them." She continued to defend as we reached the ground floor.

I sighed a bit before I called her by name. " Pheebles."

"What?" She asked.

"Quit worrying so much." I suggested, just a little bit annoyed with her at the moment.

"Maybe you just need to worry more." She insisted as we approached the cafe entrance.

" Then we'd never get anywhere." I defended.

"Maybe you're right." She pointed out.

" -sighs-, whatever, let's just get something to eat." I said.

"Ok" She said as we headed into the cafe and quieted down as there were a lot more people around. There was a lunch buffet type thing going on, so we got our food and found a table before we began to talk again.

"Is that lizzard guy anywhere?" She quietly asked.

"Nope, I don't see him." I replied.

"Ok, keep a look out." She said.

"Well...you're the psychic one..." I replied, figuring she would sense him before I would.

"I know, but there's a lot of people here." She insisted.

"What's your limit?" I asked out of curiousity, we've been together for 3 or was it 4 years now and I had somehow never asked her before.

"What do you mean?" She asked in return.

"At what point does there become too many people for you to be able to keep track?" I further explained my question.

"Um, maybe around, 10 or so." She answered

"I thought it was higher than that?" I said, somewhat surprised.

"Well it depends, I can find you easilly because I know you so well, people I just met, not so much, they blend in more, and then there's the ones that just aren't very smart, you know, they're hard to detect because they don't have much going on to begin with."

"The lizzard guy kind of falls into both those categories, and combined with this crowd, I really need your help to keep an eye out for him." She insisted.

"Allright, if you say so." I replied.

A few minutes passed by as we had a rather uneventful lunch, lizzard guy never showed up, his owl-like friend did, but we didn't have any reason to talk to him. After lunch we were about to head back up to the room when Vince approached us from the lobby.

"Get all your things and come outside, we're good to go." He said.

So we went up to the room so Phoebe could get her purse, then we went back down to the lobby and out the front doors, then we followed Vince down the street a little ways to a parking garage where a panel van was waiting for us.

"Are we going there right now? "I asked, unsure if the hq was our next destination.

" We have to pick up some others first, then I'll take you to the hq." Vince replied.

"Allright" I answered, somewhat glad I had more time to think things through.

"How many more are comming with us?" Phoebe asked as we got in the van.

" 6, if they show up." Vince answered while he drove us out of the garage.

"If they show up?" I questioned.

"Most of them will be there, but we had trouble contacting two of them, and we couldn't find anyone to replace them on such short notice." He replied in a somewhat nervous manner.

"They might be there though, I just don't know if they got the message." He continued after an awkward pause.

" Well, it shouldn't matter too much." I said, trying to stay confident.

" The more we have the easier it will be, and you know it's not going to be as easy as it was if they use cyborgs now." Phoebe insisted.

"Yeah about that, it will take awhile for them to deploy the cyborgs, so the faster you get in there, the less of them you'll have to deal with, and when they're ready they'll come from the armory, because that's where they charge their batteries, so look out for them around there. In the unlikely event you can make it to the armory before they decide to activate them, you can take them out while they're unconcious, but it's unlikely you'll be able to do so because they're more than likely going to start deployiing them as soon as they spot you. Also, it would be best to deal with the cyborgs indoors, as they'll probably be keen on holding back to prevent collateral damage to their own building." Vince said as he continued to provide us with vital information while we were on the way to pick up reinforcements.

The pickup location was only a few blocks away, so we were only in the van for a few minutes or so before more people joined us. Even if they were to survive, we wouldn't know them for very long as we would be leaving the world after this, so there wasn't much incentive to get to know them. On the way to the HQ we took the time to discuss our plan of attack. Unlike the last time we raided one of their headquarters, they didn't suspect that we were comming, so they wouldn't have the front guarded so heavily, but getting in undetected with all their sensors scattered around was an impossible task, so while getting in wouldn't be as difficult, we were still in for a fight inside the building. Inevitably we arrived at the hq, Vince parked the van out front, and we had a moment's pause before all hell would inevitably break loose.

"Ok Pheebles, if you teleport us to the front door from here, will you be good to go? Because if you can do that, we'll have as close to a surprise attack as we possibly can." I asked, as I was still unsure, after all this time, of her limits.

"I can do that if you cover me for a moment once we're there." She answered.

" How long is a moment? " I asked.

"Just a few seconds, I'll be fine." She insisted.

"Ok then." I replied.

"Allright then, everybody join hands. no, not you Vince, everyone that's leaving, get ready to fight."

"It helps if you close your eyes, it's a bit less disorienting that way." I suggested.

"What's a bit less...?" One of our new allies spoke out only for Phoebe's teleportation to interupt him.

I covered her so she could catch her breath for a moment while the rest of our team headed inside the building. We followed shortly after and started to make our way to the holding cells. We didn't meet with much resistance until we got passed the lobby, where we clashed with a few space police agents in the corridors. Our team mates were armed with assault rifles, and combined with their completely unneccesary tendency to shoot everyone on sight it quickly became a bloody mess. Normally Phoebe would just sneek up behind them and knock them unconcious, but before she could even think to do so they fired, an officer was killed, an alarm went off, and seconds later more officers approached only to meet the same fate. I admit, I wasn't expecting our allies to be so brutal, and it kind of caught me off guard. Phoebe was coping with it for the moment, but I knew we were going to need to talk about this later. Anyway, as we left the lobby, I scavenged a pistol from one of the officers. For the first 20 minutes or so as we made our way to the holding cells the space police were not putting up much of a fight. It was much easier than last time so far as their weren't as many officers and we had more people, this worked out well because it meant we could refrain from using our pokemon. It wasn't until we made it to the holding cells that things began to get a lot more intense. As we reached the holding cells 3 of our allies split off to find the controls to unlock the cell doors, leaving Phoebe and I along with two others guarding the entry way. This was when we had our first encounter with the cyborgs. As they came around the corner, we saw that they looked almost human, but they had large, red tinted glasses covering their eyes, that appeared as if it may have been attached to their face by more permanent means. They also walked in a manner that just seemed off, as if it was too perfect, too consistant and machine like to be natural.

"Oh crap cyborgs are here." I said.

"Space police, you are underarrest for breaking into the building. Surrender now, resistance is futile." Uttered one of the cyborgs in an authoritative monotone.

Our allies fired at them, but they took the bullets in stride and fired back, encapsulating our allies in plasma bubbles.

"Surrender!" One of the cyborgs spoke again.

" Not getting much of a reading, I don't want to try to knock them out." Phoebe said, sounding a bit nervous for good reason.

" Yeah, um, we're going to have to try something else, allright Magnum, if bullets won't work, let's try thunder!" I prepared to send out Cap'n'Magnum.

"Let's go." Phoebe said as she grabbed by hand immediately after I let go of the ball and teleported us out of harms way, around a corner, barely dodging a plasma bubble.

"Dammit Pheebles, Magnum you ok?" I called out, unable to see my pokemon from here, I could hear the arc of electricity though, so he was attacking them atleast.

"I had no choice, we were going to get hit." Phoebe defended herself.

"Yeah I know, it was a good call, it was just unexpected." I said as I peeked around the corner to see what was going on. The prisoners just stood there in their cells, some huddled in the corner, and others attempting to break down the door. The electricity managed to burn the cyborg's skin, but they were still going.

"Magnezone" Cap'n Magnum called out, as he attempted to dodge the incoming plasma bubbles, eventually he took a direct hit, which slowed him down, but it didn't completely immobilize him like it had done to our allies.

"I want to use magnet bomb, but we're indoors." I said, not sure how to deal with these things.

" Yeah, that's not the best idea, here, I'll get Magnum's ball back for you." Phoebe said, as she used her powers to make his ball roll back to me. Since she had teleported us away it had simply fallen to the floor.

"Magna magnezone!" Cap'n Magnum cried out as the plasma caused him to lose balance and bump into the wall, cementing him to it.

"Oh crap...Can you still attack?" I asked, which caused him to release another thunder attack, which unfortunately didn't do much better than the first.

"Return him, let's get out of here." Phoebe said.

I returned Magnum to his ball, which seemed to confuse the cyborgs for a moment, and then Phoebe teleported us to the end of the hall, and began to throw shadowballs at them as they rounded the corner. They were beginning to look a lot less human with their skin severely burned in places, exposing muscle tissue and internal machinery.

"This is the Space police, you are under arrest for attacking a sanctioned building, illegal use of teleportation technology, assaulting an officer, interfearing with justice, and resisting arrest. Surrender now, resistance is futile." The cyborgs continued to ask us to surrender despite the obvious.

"Illegal use of teleportation technology?" I laughed, they didn't seem to know that Phoebe could teleport naturally. I started shooting at them, but it did very little good, only causing one of them to have a slight limp. For a moment, it seemed as though we were screwed.

Thankfully, just then the cell doors opened, various prisoners escaped and attacked the cyborgs enmass. Even though the cyborgs were very strong, they couldn't take on so many people at once. Not long after they were encased in plasma and our team mates were freed from their bubbles.

"That was too close!" Phoebe exlaimed, "I didn't know how long I could keep teleporting us away from them."

" Yeah . . . . saved by the . . . . . doors?" I replied.

"Something like that." She answered.

"Ok, let's go find the armory then." I said as we followed what was now quite a large group down the hall passed the cyborgs stuck to the wall.

"Or maybe we can just go find the portal?" Phoebe suggested.

"It's best we follow our friends for now, I doubt those are the only cyborgs here." I said, as I stole a bubblegun from one of the incapacitated cyborgs.

"Maybe this will be more effective against them then a regular gun." I said.

"Probably, that pistol you were using barely did anything." Phoebe replied.

"Surrender! There will be more of us." The cyborg spoke up, stuck helplessly to the wall.

"I don't plan on it." I replied as I walked away.

"If you keep resisting lethal force will be authorized." He said before I was out of earshot.

"Lethal Force?" Phoebe said, sounding quite concerned.

"What are they going to start using regular guns? Don't worry about it Pheebles. We'll be outta here soon enough." I answered, not really seeing how it would make a difference, " Now come on we're falling behind."

"Right ok."

We caught up with our allies, who had met with some more cyborgs that were guarding the armory. A few would get trapped in bubbles on occasion, but once the cyborgs were eventually overwhelmed by the masses, others would take their guns and free them. Once the group made it to the armory, they were pretty much free to escape, since they were now all armed and practically unstoppable. With their main object complete, our original team split up once again, with three of them heading down to the generator room in order to defend it, while we headed for the portal with some extra protection, as for the prisoners, they procceeded to fight their way out and escape. So far the mission had been a success, and thankfully, it had been pretty easy going so far, which was good, because we were very limited on potions and getting our pokemon into huge battles this early in our adventure to the other side of existence was not an ideal situation.

"Ok, let's just find the dam portal and get out of here." I said.

"So where is it?" Phoebe asked.

"It's usually on one of the upper floors, come on, every second counts." Our nameless ally answered as we followed him down the hall.

"No more shooting humans, if you see any that aren't cyborgs let me deal with them." Phoebe insisted, as usual, not wanting to spill anymore blood than neccesary.

" Or we could just use the bubble gun." I suggested.

"Yes, but if their buddies find them they can escape, if I put them to sleep it won't matter if they're trapped or not." She argued.

"You know shooting them doesn't kill them, they got nanobots in their blood, they'll be fine within the hour. That's why the prisoners are going to shoot them again with the bubble guns, once we get downstairs." Our ally said.

"Dam I forgot about that, that's right." I remembered.

"Huh?" Phoebe said, seemingly confused.

"You don't remember? A while ago I shot one, because we were pretty much cornered, and it got up and was chasing us again just a few minutes later." I tried to remind her.

"Oh...yeah, that was... a long time ago." She replied as we reached some stairs to the second floor.

"Where they space police though? I don't really remember." Phoebe continued.

"I don't remember, it was a few weeks back, I think." I answered.

"Hurry up, the longer it takes to get you to the portal the more difficult it will be for me to get out of here." Our ally complained as he was already heading up the stairs while Phoebe and I had paused for a moment at the bottom.

"Right, umm sorry, come on Cj." Phoebe said as she followed him up the stairs.

Once we made it to the top we headed down yet another hallway passed some offices and a break room. Some human were hiding out, waiting to attack, but Phoebe quickly found them and put them to sleep one by one. Our ally seemed to be a bit lost. At first it seemed there were no more stairs, so the portal had to be on this floor, though there appeared to be atleast 3 floors from the outside, and this floor had the same ceiling height the lower floor had.

The end of the hall led to a large room with a maze of several cubicle offices, with cubicle walls that almost went up to the ceiling, spare and inch or so, Phoebe had to knockout a few more officers, both ones that were hiding in the office and ones that were comming up from behind as te rest of us looked for the stairs, after awhile we found a staircase that was hidden in the corner by cubicle walls, one of which was on a hinge that functioned like a gate. It had some sort of lock on it, without a keyhole, but in lieu of wasting more time trying to find a key, I simply used rhyhorn to break it down. So moments later we found ourselves on the third floor, after Phoebe had us hold up on the stairs so she could knock all the officers unconscious that were hiding above. The entire floor turned out to be one large room, and it was set up as some kind of laboratory, with darkly tinted windows to prevent prying eyes on the outside from seeing in, and countertops covered with various electronics and lab equipment, most of which I could not identify.

"The portal is over here." Phoebe said, taking the lead.

" Really? It's out in the open? No more locked doors or anything." I asked, underwhelmed after discovering their little cubicle trick.

"Ok let's do this, I'll get it running, you two prepare to head in." Our ally spoke up, as he flipped a switch on the machine.

"So this next world won't have space police?" I asked, to reaffirm my beliefs.

"No, but it might not have much of anything else either, it's entirely random." Our ally insisted.

Phoebe: "Well, we'll have to see."

"You know it could kill you outright." Our ally warned, as the portal began to form within the arc of the machine.

"It won't, it can't, the TTG knows we'll make it." Phoebe insisted, taking my hand as we prepared to enter the portal together.

"Who's the TTG?" Our ally asked, of course he never heard of him before.

Phoebe: "A friend." She answered as the portal was almost ready to use.

"Ok, you can enter now, it's ready to use, goodbye and good luck." He said, giving a salute as Phoebe and I began to walk towards the portal, neither of us knew what would be on the other side, we had reason to believe it wouldn't be lethal, but beyond that, we could end up 50ft above the ocean for all we knew. In fact, I was considering the possibility of that happening at the time, and the more I thought about that, the more I thought about how that could be the worst place the portal could lead to, but I didn't get much time to think about it, because moments later we were about to step through.

As usual when we went through a portal, everything went black for a brief moment, then the "lights" so to speak came back on and we found ourselves in an entirely new place. The portal swirled behind us for a few seconds then dissapeared, there was no turning back, so we took a moment to examine our new surroundings. It was sometime in the evening here, almost sunset, we were on a large hill, overlooking golden fields below, reminding me so much of home.

"It's almost dark, we should find some shelter." Phoebe said as she began to walk away.

"We're not even tired though, we won't be for several hours." I said as I began to follow her.

"Yes, but who knows what else comes out at night here?" Phoebe questioned.

"Stuff you can see comming from a mile away." I insisted.

"What if there's giant bugs?" She continued to question.

"Why would there be?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't there be? " She replied.

"So what you just want to find some shelter and sit around for several hours?" I asked.

"If that's ok with you." She replied.

"I'd rather just keep going till we find some sign of civilization." I suggested as we made our way down the hill. "If we follow the edge of the fields we should eventually be able to find a road, there's no reason to waste so much time."

"Aren't the fields themselves a sign of civilization? " She asked.

"Yeah, I guess they are, still, it would be best to find a house." I replied.

"Oh allright, but if we come across any giant bugs you're going to need to fight them for me." She conceded.

"Allright then come on." I replied, not expecting giant bugs to appear any time soon.

- 20 minutes later-

We made it down the hill and to the edge of a field.

"I don't know what's worse, when the portals take us to the middle of a big city or to the middle of nowhere." Phoebe said out of the blue, it had been awhile since either of us had said anything.

"Not quite the middle of nowhere, not like those ancient ruins." I said, confident of our surroundings. "We'll find life in a few hours, I guarantee it, we just have to find a road."

"And what if their isn't a road?" She asked

"Pheebles, there has to be, there's no way they could get any equipment in to work these fields without one." I insisted.

"What if they weren't worked by machines?" She defended.

"They're in rows, they have to be, there's no reason to plant in rows unless you're using machines." I answered.

"They still plant stuff in rows without machines." She defended.

"Not on this scale." I shot back. "You know how long that would take ? Even so, there would still have to be a road, or a farmhouse nearby, before they had machines their fields would probably be smaller, and closer to their houses. Aside from that, you better hope we're not that far back in time, you know the further back we are the more difficult it will be to find a portal?"

"Not neccesarily, we found one in ancient ruins remember?" She defended as we continued to walk alongside the field.

"Why are we arguing about this?" I asked, out of curiousity.

"I don't know, it just helps to pass the time." She answered.

"Yeah, I guess it does." I agreed.

We stopped talking for a moment as we had run out of things to say. A few minutes later, as the sun started to set and darkness began to overtake the land, she began to use her powers to light the way.

"Hold up" She stopped, suddenly.

"What? " I asked.

"There's a deer, over, it's a bit over there." She said, apparently she sensed the presence of a deer, it was nearly dark now, so I couldn't see much of anything.

"It's not a threat, just keep going." I insisted, not seeing what the big deal was.

"We could use it for food." She suggested.

"If we make it to a house we won't need food, just let it go." I insisted as I gave her a confused look as I wasn't expecting her to say that. "By the time we have it cut up we could make it to a house."

"Ohh allright, fine." She reluctantly agreed. "But you know when we get to a house they won't let me in."

"We'll have to find a way to get you in." I said. "Or hell if we're far enough back in time we can just say you're from an exotic country or something."

" Yeah, that could work." She said.

"Allright then, we have that all figured out, we're good to go baby girl." I said.

"Mhm. " She agreed.

A few minutes later we finally found a road, by then it was completely dark. It was a country road, so while it was unlikely, a car could still come by at any time. Before we even found a house we found a tractor, a Ford 9n that seemed to be operational but was otherwise unremarkable. The fact that it was coupled to a matching plow, however, gave a hint at the era we were in.

"Ok so we're in the 1940's or 50's." I said, since this equipment would be long obsolete in modern times, and nobody in their right mind would seriously use it. There were a lot of 9Ns still around, but more as collection pieces than anything.

"So that means what? 1900 to me?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, I guess, I can't think why this would be parked out here by the road unless they intend to use it." I replied.

"Because it's broken?" She asked.

"If it was they wouldn't leave it here overnight would they?" I said.

"I don't know." She replied.

"Wanna try to start it?" She asked.

" As awkward as it would be to for us both to fit on there, and considering if the owner sees us on it we might get shot at, I don't think it's the best idea." I answered."Come on, let's just keep walking."

"Ohhh ok.." She said, somewhat disappointed that we still had to walk, I'm not sure that she realized that an old tractor wouldn't have really been that much faster.

We continued to head down the road in the dark for a few minutes until we came to an old wooden bridge that crossed over a creak.

"It's shelter. We can stay under it until morning." She said with confidence, still thinking her idea was better, that somehow we were better off staying outside than in a warm, cozy house, not to sleep, but to just wait around for who knows how many hours until the sun comes up.

"Or we could find a house and actually have a bed to sleep in instead of a muddy creek bank." I said, trying to keep her focused. " Let's just keep going, come on."

"I don't want to." She refused to proceed, considering she was the only source of light out here, it wasn't very convenient, I couldn't get very far from her without ending up in complete darkness.

"Pheebles come on, why do you want to stay out here so bad? " I asked, not really sure why she was being so stubborn.

"Because I don't want to walk in the dark anymore, I just want to wait till morning." She continued to insist. I still could not wrap my head around her reasoning.

"If you'd just keep going we wouldn't have much farther to walk." I insisted . "Besides, it's not good to sleep outside, if we sleep out here we'll wake up covered in bug bites and who knows what else?"

Just then some lights appeared on the horizon, somebody was comming down the road.

"Let's get off the bridge atleast, there's a car comming." I said.

"Ok we can go under then." She insisted.

"No Pheebles just...come on let's go." I said.

"You want to try to hitchhike?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'll give it a shot, you go hide somewhere." I said as we walked off the end of the bridge.

"ok." Phoebe said before teleporting away somewhere out of sight. As usual this was a precautionary measure to keep people from freaking out about her appearence. Of course, we were assuming the occupants of the car were human, as we hadn't really seen enough of this world to be sure. Anyway, as the car approached I stood by the side of the road and tried to flag it down. Eventually it got close enough for me to see it's profile more clearly and it turned out to be a pick-up truck, a 32 ford no less. Before I could make a move, Phoebe teleported in behind me and then teleported me out of sight.

" What the heck Pheebles? I told you we're not staying under the bridge." I yelled, unsure why she did that, and kind of angry about it now too.

"I got a bad feeling about those guys, we don't want anything to do with them." She said, quietly as the bridge shook from them passing over it above.

"What do you mean?" I asked, at this point we missed our window to flag them down.

"I don't know what they're doing exactly, but they're nervous, the kind of nervous someone only gets when they're doing something very illegal." She insisted. "Why else would they be traveling this late?"

"Pheebles, they had a pick-up, you could have ridden in the back undetected." I said, somewhat upset. "We're not going to get another oppourtunity like that."

"I 'd rather walk than have to use any more potion to heal you when you get shot Cj." She defended, now slightly upset. "If they don't kill you outright."

"Oh calm down, who the hell shoots random people walking down the street?" I asked as she was about to cry.

" People that don't want to be seen doing whatever illegal thing they're doing." She answered while staring at the ground.

"Wait do you hear that?" I asked as I heard something else come up the road.

" Hear what?" She asked.

"It's another car." I answered.

"Take me up, now." I said.

"Fine." She said. "Just don't get mad if I bring you back down again."

"I'm not mad, it just..annoys me when you do things like that..."

She took my hand, teleported, and cut me off.

"Without warning." I finished after we were back up by the road.

"Sorry." She said, before teleporting back down out of sight.

So there I was, trying to flag down another car since Phoebe had a "bad feeling", about the first one. I knew she was probably right, but we could have atleast gotten a ride to town or something, we didn't have to associate with them once we got there.

Anyway, this car turned out to be a 1940s chevrolet police sedan, it turned it's one flashing red light on and pulled over as soon as it saw me. Not at all what I was expecting to happen. The car came to a stop and the officer inside hurredly rolled the window down.

"Watcha doing out here so late?" He called out from the safety of his car.

"Um, you know, just uh...taking a walk." I said, really hoping he wouldn't try to arrest me, I was starting to get sick of corrupt police. "I'm a bit lost, can I get a ride into town?"

"Allright get in."

"Come on Pheebles, hide in the trunk or something." I thought, hoping she was listening.

" No way Cj, I'm sitting by you." She answered telepathically.

When I opened the door, I found that somehow, she had already teleported into the car.

"What happens if he sees you?" I whispered as the car pulled away. The car was noisy enough the driver couldn't hear me.

"I'll just have to keep quiet." She whispered back.

"You better, I don't even know what will happen if he sees you." I whispered.

"Oh calm down, it'll be fine." She whispered in reply, not worried in the slightest as she gently took my hand.

"So where do you want to go in town?" The officer asked out of the blue.

Since I knew nothing about said town, this was a question I could easilly answer wrong.

"Just drop me off downtown, it will be fine." I replied.

"Anywhere in particular?" He asked.

"No not really." I replied. " I just like to walk the strip at night, it reminds me of home."

"You have any family?"

"No not out here, I've been alone for five months now since my wife left me." I replied, obviously lying, Phoebe was right next to me after all.

"So I don't exist now?" She whispered.

"But you still wear the ring?" He asked, he must of noticed my ring earlier, what an observant cop.

"Yeah, as a reminder, plus it's the most valuable thing I own, I can't bring myself to sell it." I answered as my lie began to get bigger and bigger.

"You're terrible at this." Phoebe whispered.

"Oh be quiet, it's worked so far, the only thing that can screw it up now is he figures out you're in here." I replied.

"What was that?" The officer asked.

"Nothing, it's just part of a song my mother used to sing to me when I was little." I answered.

"Is she still alive?" He asked.

"No, sadly, she died in the winter of last year." Me.

"Jesus, what did you do? Cross the devil? Piss off a leprechaun?" He said about my supposedly tragic life story.

"I have no idea what I did, but it seems like it sometimes." I answered.

"What's a leprechaun?" Phoebe asked in a whisper.

"If you have any questions ask them later when we're not in a situation like this." I answered, again in a whisper.

"You're not very good at singing." The officer commented.

"Well, I'm just trying to remember the lyrics." I defended.

Somehow, we made it to town without him ever knowing Phoebe was along for the ride, if it was for nothing but a miracle. Once we arrived she teleported out, then I got out of the car as normal, the officer drove away and once he was out of sight she rejoined me.

" We made it." She said, matter of factly.

" I don't know how we got away with it, but yeah, anyway, now what?" I asked, unsure what to do now, there was no obvious place to look for a portal.

"Explain to me what 'but yeah' means." She said.

"It doesn't mean anything important now." I replied. "I guess we can just go exploring."

"Yeah, I guess." She replied.

"Wait a minute, what happened to finding a house?" She asked, realizing we weren't going to find somewhere to stay anytime soon.

"Change of plans Pheebles, try to keep up." I replied, as she gave me an annoyed look.

"Oh don't get mad, come on." I said as I began to walk down the street. "We're in town now, if there were any giant bugs I highly doubt we'd find them here."

She stared at me for awhile out of conviction as I walked away, no longer needing her for light, then she let out a sigh before replying "Yeah, I guess you're right.", then she finally began to follow behind me.

We walked down the street, passed several stores that were already closed for the night. There were no street lights, instead light was provided by a single huge tower equipped with many powerful lights that shined in all directions. I've never seen anything quite like it before.

"Pheebles, about the combat earlier..." I said as I decided to get this conversation out of the way. Phoebe interupted me before I could finish.

"I'm ok, it bothered me at first, but then that one guy reminded me they weren't dead." She said.

"Ok, just checking." I continued.

"Thankyou." She said as she walked alongside me.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

"I still think we should just find somewhere to wait till morning." She answered. "And maybe take a nap. No one is out here right now, they're all at home sleeping. There's nobody out to tell us where another portal might be."

" Ohhh allright, let's try to find somewhere to stay the night." I said, sensing the inevitability of the situation.

"Thankyou, maybe we can find a hotel." She suggested.

"Yeah, maybe." I answered. "But this town may be too small too...Is that a train station?"

The site of a small train station on the other side of the road caught me off guard, It was a small station with a single platform that in addition to the light from the tower was illuminated by gas lamps. It also had a small gravel parking lot that was empty aside from what appeared to be a model a sedan. It caught me off guard because where I grew up it was really weird for a town this small to have a train station...then again, for all we knew we were somewhere in the 30s, where cars hadn't quite taken over yet.

"Hey Pheebles let's go check this out." I said as I began to cross the street. "If this station is still open we can ask the ticket man if there's a hotel nearby."

"Why would it still be open? " She asked as she began to follow me across.

"Trains can arrive at night, I guess, the platform lights are still on, they might be expecting a train." I said as I reached the other side. Moments later I was close enough to see that in addition to the platform lights, there was indeed a light on inside the building, and just a bit later I could make out a man behind the ticket window.

"Next train won't be here for another hour. I just got a telegram out of Dawson Falls, engine broke down, they had to wait for a replacement." The ticket man said as I approached his window. Meanwhile Phoebe stayed back by the sidewalk on the edge of the parking lot, out of the man's sight.

"That's ok, I'm not here for a train, I just want to ask if you know if there's a hotel around." I said.

"Yeah, just keep heading up the street, it's the fourth door on your left, you might have to knock for a while, the innkeeper is probably asleep by now." He answered.

"Oh, ok thanks." I replied as I walked away from the window.

"Pheebles, where did you go?" I called out.

"I'm back here, I can't let him see me."

" Oh, ok, come along baby girl, I know where the hotel is." I said as I made my way back across the parking lot.

Of course the ticket master, who was watching us from his post was now confused as he hadn't heard her say anything, though he could see enough of her to tell that I wasn't talking to nobody.

Anyway, as we were already close to the hotel, I came up with a plan. "Ok Pheebles, I'll get us a room, while you wait outside, then when I have one you can teleport up without them knowing, ok?"

"Ok, sounds good, just don't forget about me." She replied.

"Why would I do that?" I asked.

Following the ticket man's instructions, we headed down to the fourth building on the left. A decal saying "Riverdale Hotel" in gold letters with a red outline decorated the window, along with a vacancy sign and another small sign giving nightly rates, 5 bucks a night, 4 per night if you needed to stay for over a week. The pricing, of all things, finally confirmed the time period we were in. There was no way a hotel would cost five bucks a night in modern times, we really were somewhere in the 30s or 40s. Shortly after comming to that conclusion, I approached the front door while Phoebe hid off to the side, out of sight. I knocked on the door 3 times and waited for about 20 seconds before knocking again, after repeating this process a few times a woman eventually answered the door.

"What do ya want I'm trying to sleep?" She said, sounding tired and somewhat annoyed.

"Do you have a room we could stay the night in? We got just got into town." I asked.

" Pick any key on the wall behind the desk and just be quiet, we'll talk more in the morning." She said before locking the door behind me and walking away, back to her own room.

"Um...ok...thanks.." I said, surprised at the fact the Innkeeper didn't seem to care.

Behind the front desk there was a pegboard with room numbers and keys. Some were missing, indicating that that particular room was occupied.

I picked room 24, which I figured was on the second floor, it was a small hotel with only 40 rooms in all.

So I headed up the stairs and found the room. It wasn't very impressive. Queen size bed, pale yellow walls, and a horrendously primitive, but cool looking wood grained TV. It was basically just a big wooden box with just a tiny tv screen, and a speeker built in.

"Ok Pheebles, come up now." I thought, as I sat on the bed for atleast a minute before Phoebe came in through the door.

"What took ya?" I asked, expecting her to teleport in almost instantly.

"The manager went back to bed, I just unlocked the door, snuck passed and went up the stairs. " She answered as she set her purse in the corner of the room and sat beside me on the bed. "It was easier than trying to teleport into a building I'm not familiar with."

"If you say so." I answered.

"Um...is that a tv?" She asked.

"Yep, it's a really old tv." I answered.

"Does it work?" She said as she kicked of her shoes and lied down on the bed.

"Um...let's see."

I got up and went to adjust the dial.

"Where's the remote?" She asked as she worked her way under the covers.

"I don't think there is one." I answered

"Really?" She asked.

"Remotes haven't caught on yet." I answered as I stared at the dials trying to figure out how to turn it on. Eventually I figured out that one dial was for the volume, the other was for the channel.

As I turned the channel dial the tv click on and some old style music began to play.

"Hey this show is in black and white." She said as the picture appeared on the screen.

"I think the tv is in black and white." I answered.

"Really?" She asked.

"Mhm."I replied as I headed back to the bed.

"I've never seen a black and white tv before." She said.

"Really?" I asked as I kicked off my shoes as well and got under the covers with her.

"I've seen black and white tv shows but never a black and white tv." She answered.

"Well you have now." I said as I put my arm around her.

"Mhm." She said as we snuggled." "This bed is a marshmellow."

"Yeah it is." I replied. "So you just want to watch tv until morning?"

"For now yes, and then maybe we can fool around later." She answered.

"Maybe?" I asked."

"Mhm, maybe." She answered."Now quiet I want to watch tv." She said in a somewhat stern tone.

"Ok, ok, crazy girl." I said as I tried to focus on the tv.

"What show is this?" She asked seconds later.

"I have no idea." I answered, I wasn't really aquainted with 1930s tv shows, aside from that this world could have a completely alternate tv lineup anyway. We weren't really back in time after all, we were on an alternate world where humanity had only progressed so far.

The timeline was very similiar so far, with cars nearly identical to our world at the time, but even then there would likely be subtle differences, for instance, cars that never existed in our world, battles with different outcomes. If we really were in the 30s, world war 2 could break out at any moment, though there was no obvious sign of it so far. If that were the case, things could get really bad really fast, but maybe we were in the 40s, and the war was already over. At this point it was too hard to tell.

"I forgot to mention, the year is 1946." Phoebe said out of the blue.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Did you forget I could read minds? All I had to do was lead someone to think what year it is." She replied.

"That means it's been 1 year since the end of world war 2." I said.

"OK." She answered.

"Actually, that gives me an idea." I said. "Germany was developing a lot of advanced technology during world war 2, if there was a place that would have a working portal machine in this time period."

"It would be them?" She interupted.

"Presumably, though I can't guarantee anything." I continued. " Although Russia, Britain, or the U.S.A may have captured the technology. "

"Well which one is it then?" She asked.

"I have no idea, after the war, america actually hired some german rocket scientists, via operation paperclip, and they went on to start NASA, I don't know about the rest of the allies, but there's a good enough chance for it to be over here as any." I tried to explain."Personally, if we're on the right track I hope it's over here." I continued. "We don't even have any money for airline tickets or anything, so how are we even going to get over there?" I asked.

"I don't know." She said. "I just want to relax right now, we'll work on getting out of here in the morning...ok?"

"Allright, if that's what you want." I agreed.

"Let's just watch the weird tv." She said.

I really wanted to say it wasn't that weird, it was just old, but I decided just to let it go, it was a rare moment where we really didn't have anything productive to do but relax and enjoy vintage tv programs, might as well enjoy it. The bed was marshmellowy soft, but it was comfortable, if a little warm. Fortunately we had sound, as it was kind of hard to make out anything on the tiny screen.

We watched Tv for a bit, then we made out for a bit when we got bored with the tiny screen, then we made love for a bit, and at some point morning arrived. Because of the time difference, morning was when we actually began to feel tired.

"It's morning Cj, we should get up now." She said in a tired voice at about the time I was almost asleep.

"Ohhhh, come . . . . . on, I'm just starting to get tired." I protested.

"We need to fight through it Cj, you know this." She said as she sat up in bed. "Now come on." She got out of bed and hurriedly slipped on her dress.

"Fine." I said after letting out a sigh, this was going to be a long day.

"Though we should probably figure out what we're going to do first, we owe money for the room, and I don't think we're..."

"I'll just teleport us out, it will be fine." She interupted me while fixing her hair in front of a mirror.

"Then what?" I asked, trying to stall as much as possible.

"Then, I . . . . . . I don't know." She replied.

"Yup." I answered.

"But we have to do something." She insisted.

"Then why don't we just slow down and try to come up with a strategy? Isn't that enough of a thing? Now come here, get back in bed." I asked.

"But I just started brushing my hair out." She said as she looked away from the mirror, her hair half a mess.

"We have plenty of time Pheebles, just relax and come here." I said.

"We need to figure this out."

She sat by me on the bed, continueing to brush her hair out.

"So I was thinking we should try to infiltrate a military research facility." I began.

"Where?" She asked.

"I don't know yet, I was thinking we could sneak you into a base, and then you could read the minds of the higher ups to get us the information we need." I suggested.

"I'm going to have to do a lot of searching for that." She replied.

"Well, we know there has to be a portal right?" I asked.

"I guess." She answered.

"I litterally have no idea where else to look baby girl."

"So we might as well give it a shot." I said as I playfully wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.

"Hey wha... Cj... let go!" She cried out.

"Hehehe...got you!" I said.

"No funny business mister." She said.

"Oh come on, just one kiss? " I asked.

"Five." She said.

"five?" I asked, somewhat stunned.

She kissed me five times, really quickly.

"You're very strange you know that?" I said in a playful tone.

"i wuv you." She said, cutely.

"I love you too." I said.

"No I wuv you." She repeated, again, in a cute manner.

"I love you." I said, again.

"No say wuv." She insisted.

"What's the difference?" I asked.

She just gave me the cutest look.

"Fine I wuv you." I said, reluctantly.

She kissed me again.

"Are you going to let me go now?" She playfully said. "You still need to get dressed."

I waited for a few seconds to respond.

"Yeah, I guess." I said, reluctantly.

"One more kiss." She said in a playful manner.

"Wha..?" I barely had a chance to say anything before she interupted me with a kiss, then somehow she got away from me.

"Hey come back." I said, just wanting to hold her a bit longer.

"No come on, we have to get going." She insisted. "No more stalling, I'm not falling for your tricks again."

"Fine, let's go then." I said, finally deciding to get out of bed.

After we both got dressed she packed up her things that had, somehow wandered out of her purse during the course of the night, and then we teleported out onto the sidewalk below.

"Are you sure the manager won't call the cops on us?" I asked.

"She shouldn't, why do you think I cleaned the room up so much? What I'm hoping for is that she'll see you're gone and think you were nothing but a dream." She said. "She doesn't even know what room we're in."

"Well she could tell, if the keys were missing." I replied.

"Oh..." She said as she realized. "Um..."

"We didn't return the keys did we?" I asked.

"Yeah." She said, appearing to be becoming more concerned.

"And if she sees that they're missing." I continued.

"She'll know it couldn't have been a dream." She answered.

"Mhm." I agreed, slowly nodding my head. "It's the little things Pheebles."

"Do you have the key?" She asked.

"Yep, it's right here." I said while fishing it out of my pocket.

"I'll be right back." She said as she took the key.

"Ok, just don't do anything stupid." I replied.

"Ha ha, very funny." She said as she prepared to teleport away.

She teleported out for a bit, I wasn't sure exactly where but I knew it had to be somewhere around the hotel lobby. I waited around for about a minute for her to return.

"Ok, it's taken care of, let's go." She said as she teleported in behind me.

" Ok." I replied as we set off down the street.

"Shouldn't you be hiding or something? " I said.

"Yeah, I'll watch you from the rooftops, you go find someone to talk to about a military base." She answered.

"Ok, sounds like a plan." I said.

She teleported away moments later.

I continued to walk down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace so she could keep up. A few cars drove by, most of them 1930s models with a few model ts and newer, 1940s models for good measure. It was quite a sight to see so many old cars in such pristine condition. I could even hear the sound of a steam engine approaching on the rails, which ran behind the buildings, but despite my curiousity I decided to stay focused on the task at hand, I needed to find somebody to talk to. At some point I happened to come across a military convoy, consisting of quite a few jeeps, and some trucks, with a full compliment of troops on board. I used this as an oppourtunity to ask a bystander about them.

"Where are they all comming from?" I asked as the parade of military hardware passed by.

"Probably Fort Jacobson, they come through all the time, on training exercises." The bystander replied.

"Where's the fort? I want to enlist." I asked.

"It's right outside of town. Just keep heading down mainstreet, you'll pass a lumberyard, it's a about a mile passed the city limits, can't miss it." He answered.

"Allright thanks." I said.

Meanwhile, Phoebe went off on her own, figuring I was only heading down the street so she had a little bit of time to do some exploring. Right off of mainstreet she found a used car lot where an overzealous salesman was trying to sell a car to a young couple.

"Ok Ok, listen, this is the cheepest car we have on the lot, it's a 1932 Ford Model 40 tudor we just got in last week from a police auction, it's in terrific condition, barely used, the rumor is the famous outlaw John Lecroy stole it and stashed it in a barn out in the country, intending to use it as his second during his getaway from the grand national bank but as you know he never made it out of the city before the police gunned him down. It's got a 221 Cu in flathead v8, 65hp. I know it's old, and it's a far cry from the lincoln, but if you got cash, it can be yours today for 900."

His pitch began.

"Um, yeah, it's nice. but it's a bit small, we were hoping we could get a four door or something." The man replied, obviously not really interested in this car.

While Phoebe was watching this, she thought it would be nice for us to have a car so we wouldn't have to walk everywhere. Of course, without any money, it would be impossible to buy one, but she wouldn't dare steal one, either, unless, it was then she came up with a plan.

" Well if you want to give me 500 more, I can get you that 37 studebaker Sedan over there for uh 1400, it's had 3 owners, but it runs beautifully. It's got a 6 cylinder with about 80hp, I think, I don't remember, but it's yours for 1400." The salesman said.

"Would you take twelve?" The man replied, not thinking 1400 on a decade old sedan was a good deal.

"No I would not take twelve, 1400, or you walk away without a car." The salesman said, unwilling to go lower.

"Well fine then, come on honey, there's another dealer in the next town over, let's see if they have a better offering." The man said, ready to leave.

"Ok fine, I'll do 1350." The salesman said again.

"Too late." The man said as he climbed into his even older model A sedan and slowly pulled out of the lot.

"Stupid city slickers." The salesman said as he headed towards his office, a little shack on the edge of the lot.

"Weeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh." Went the ford, as it's early electric horn suddenly went off.

"What the?" Said the salesman, completely surprised."

"Weeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhh." Went the ford again. "Weeeaaaah...weeeeaaaahhh... weaaaaaahhhh."

The salesman quickly realized the ford was honking it's horn, and so went to investigate, after briefly looking in the window to confirm there was nobody in the car. He opened the left side of the hood, but when he went to open the right the left had closed itself.

"Weeeeeaaahhhhhh." The horn went off again.

The driver's door opened. The doors shut again. Basically the car acted like it was possessed. The horn kept honking, quickly getting the attention of onlookers.

"Looks like your car is haunted." Phoebe said as she teleported in behind the salesman.

"Who the hell are you and what is going on? " Said the salesman.

"Well if I can have the car I'll make it stop." Phoebe continued, managing to stay just out of sight while continuing to make the car act possessed. "Or else the ghost might take over the others."

She made the car inside the showroom, which was a brand new lincoln, honk it's horn.

"Ok ok, just take it." Said the salesman. "Just make it stop."

"Just put the keys in the ignition." Phoebe said. As the driver side door opened up on it's own, and stayed open.

"Ok, and that will stop it?" The salesman continued.

"Yes that will stop it." Phoebe continued.

The salesman did as she asked.

"Who are you lady and where are you? Show yourself."

"It's best if I don't." Phoebe replied.

"There's somethings you humans just aren't ready to understand." She replied.

"Now if you'll excuse me, the ghost is gone and I'll be taking my car now."

The ford started up on it's own, and very, very, slowly made it's way out of the lot. Driving a car telepathically was not the easiest of tasks. The best way to explain to a non-psychic, is that It's like operating a remote control car, but there's more controls and each of them needs around 10 lbs of force to move, depending on the distance, oh, yeah and crashing can result in a fiery explosion, and instead of your arms getting tired you just get headaches.

Anyway, the car made it's way to a nearby alley and sat there.

Unable to comprehend what just happened, the salesman was about ready to crack, he retreated to the safety of his office.

Anyway, Phoebe quietly entered the car in the alleyway, and drove away.

Moments later, I was still walking down mainstreet, towards the military base. I thought Phoebe was still watching me, so imagine my surprise when a car came up behind me and beeped at me.

"What do you want? " I didn't know anybody here, so I thought they may have thought I was somebody else, then I turned around and saw Phoebe behind the wheel.

"Wha? Pheebles..where did...where did you get this?" I asked.

" It was possessed, they didn't want it on their lot one minute longer." She said.

It took all of five seconds for me to figure out what she did.

"Pheebles...god...damn..Pheebles...you're awesome, you know that?"

I got in on the passenger side.

"So they're not going to send cops after us?" I asked.

"Nope, the salesman doesn't even remember having it." She said.

"Ok then just uh, why don't I drive, and you get in the back so you can stay hidden?" I asked.

"Ok." She said as we got out and switched seats.

"Hell this is awesome." I said as I got in the driver's seat. "Ok let's get to this military base, find the damned portal and get out of here."

"Ok." She replied.

"Hopefully we won't run out of gas before then, I don't know how we're going to get more." I said as I slowly pulled away, trying to get a feel for the car, for such a small car the steering was really stiff.

"Maybe we can find a conveniently haunted gas station?" Phoebe suggested.

"We probably shouldn't push our luck." I replied, still in disbelief that she got us a car. "But still, great job baby girl, but be careful when you do stuff like that, ok, because if you get the cops on you, there goes our cover and since this is the 1940s, they'll probably think you're some kind of alien."

"But I am."She said.

" I guess, yeah, but you know what they do with aliens in the 40s?" I asked, trying to prove my point.

"What? " She asked.

"They disect them." I answered in a possibly vain attempt to scare her. Despite my appreciation of her aquiring this car for us, I had no desire for her to ever take such risks again.

"Oh...um...but you won't let that happen to me will you?" She asked in a somewhat worried manner.

"Of course not, but if we get the entire military after us that might be hard to do." I answered, wondering if I actually did manage to scare her.

"They can't be as bad as the national guard." She said as I reconsidered my previous thought.

"The national guard wasn't only going after us though, they were after the rogues, other trainers, pokemon in general, and that kept them preoccupied." I defended, knowing the military right now was probably at it's strongest point in history, relatively anyway. " Anyway, let's just get to the base and find the portal. You're gonna need to teleport out and hide when we get to the front gate, I'm not sure if they'll let us in, but they might check the car."

"What if they don't let us in?" She asked.

"Then we'll stash the car somewhere and you'll teleport us in." I answered.

"Ok, then what?" She asked.

"Then we'll have to do some sneaking around, and hope we don't get caught." I answered.

Eventually we found the military base, it wasn't too hard to spot, it was a big, fenced-in area. It was a big base complete with it's own airstrip, with some C-47s parked on the runway. After driving along the fence for about a minute, we eventually came to the entrance, where there were some toll-booth looking buildings and a gate. I pulled up to the gate while Phoebe teleported somewhere out of site so I could speak to the guard.

"Can we...I mean I go in?" I clumsily asked as the guard came over to the window.

"You have an Id?" Asked the guard as he gave me a very serious look.

"Um, no." I replied in a nervous manner.

"Then no, get outta here." He replied, sounding very annoyed if not angry.

With no other choice I put the car in reverse and began to turn around, I slowed down once I was out of sight so Phoebe could get back in, I quickly discovered she only teleported just a little bit down the road.

"They wouldn't let you in huh?" She asked as she approached the car, though it was a bit hard to hear her over the engine.

"Yep, and knocking them out will only piss off the military, still, it was worth a shot." I said. "So now we're going to have to find somewhere to park and..."

"I could go in by myself." She interupted.

"So you can mess up, get killed, and leave me alone trapped forever in this 1940s world? You don't even know what you're looking for." I said.

"Yeah I do, the commander's office." She defended.

"No, you're looking for the commander, or whoever is in charge of the place." I corrected her. "Besides, I'd rather we do this together. "

"Fine, I might need your pokemon anyway." She said.

"No, we don't!" I exclaimed, at this point I wasn't sure she really understood what we were trying to do. "This is a stealth mission, we aren't here to fight. Remember, these aren't the space police, these aren't team rocket, they're just the american military in a world that is not ready to accept the truth that it isn't alone. If we weren't in this situation, they'd be the good guys. "

"Then why are they keeping all this technology secret?" She asked, refusing to believe their innocence for some reason.

"Because this world isn't ready to accept the truth." I calmly answered. "And what technology? We don't even know if they have anything yet."

"I don't want it to happen again." She said out of the blue.

"What?" I asked.

"The national guard, the killing, the war." She said in a very unerving manner, like she was having flashbacks or something.

"Baby girl, snap out of it, it's not going to happen, ok, this world hasn't even developed videogames yet, it's a long way off from being anywhere near where my world was, pokemon shouldn't exist in any form for another 40 years here atleast, assuming there's another pokemon world to fullfill that roll here. " I replied, trying to put her at ease. "Are you ok?"

"Just a bit tired."

"Well gee I wonder why?" I said with heavy sarcasm.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, maybe we should have slept a little bit." She said as she cutely cocked her head to the side. "But then we couldn't get away from the hotel for free."

"See, this is why I should go with you." I suggested.

"Yeah, you have a point." She said. "But you're just as tired as me."

"Yeah, but if you put two tired minds together, you get one awake one." I replied.

"What? Where did you hear that?" She asked in disbelief.

"Nowhere, I made it up, but it makes sense doesn't it?" I replied.

"I don't know." She answered as she finally opened the door and sat in the passenger's seat. "Can we take a break for a little bit?"

"No, we might as well get this over with, we can rest later." I answered to her dismay.

"Ooohh, allright, just give me a minute." She said as she slipped her shoes off and layed down in the back seat.

"Pheebles, come on." I said in vain, as she seemed to be determined to take a nap.

"No." She replied.

"Ok fine, I'll go find somewhere to park."

So away I went, I was surprised she managed to stay on the seat with the car rattling as it did. Anyway, 15 minutes later after I had found somewhere to park along a dirt road by a field between the city limits and the base, she sat up and slipped her shoes back on.

"Ok let's go." She said.

"Really? You sure you don't want to sleep another hour?" I asked.

"No I'm not sure, so don't tempt me, come on." She replied as she teleported out of the car. Since this was just a 2 door it was easier for her to teleport out than to get out normally, following her lead, I got out as well.

"How far are we from the base?" She asked.

"Not far, about a half mile from the perimeter, maybe, the perimeter fence should be somewhere behind that line of trees." I replied as I walked around the car to meet her on the other side.

"Ok." She said.

"We should be careful, make sure we don't end up in a firing range." I insisted.

"Yeaaah, I know, let's get close to the fence so I can see inside." She said as she started to head across the nearby field to the treeline.

"Ok" I said as I began to follow her across.

It was only a few minutes before we reached the fence. Inside we could see the control tower for the runway, in the distance along with some antenna-like structures for the airport at the end of the runway, some other buildings in the distance, and and a big open, grassy field between us and them. Every few feet along the fence, a sign was posted that said in big red letters "Restricted Area, do not enter under penalty of law."

"Ok, let's um, stick to the left and stay away from the runway." I said after analyizing the situation.

"I can teleport over to the buildings, but it will take a lot out of me." She replied.

"And you're still tired aren't you?" I asked.

"Yep." She replied.

"Is it going to tire you more to walk over there or to teleport?" I asked.

"Teleport, duh, but we might be seen if we walk." She replied.

"A can you sense anyone?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I don't see anybody from here." She answered.

"Ok then, get us right up next to the building." I said as I took her hand.

"Ok hold on." She replied. Seconds later she teleported us next to the closest building, she seemed to be a bit dizzy afterwards, so we waited for a while so she could regain her strength, keeping a lookout for anyone, because if we were spotted we were screwed. After she felt she could continue, we slowly began to make our way around the building thinking before taking every step, constantly looking every direction eventually we made it to the edge of the building, where I carefully peered around the corner.

"Coast is clear, oh wait, there's a jeep." I said as the vehicle suddenly rounded a corner and headed this way.

I pulled my head back before they spotted me.

"It's comming this way, you might have to teleport again." I said, as I carefully peeked around the corner again, only to see the same jeep round another corner by another building up the road. "No wait, it turned, ok coast is clear, let's go."

We carefully ran over to the next building, here there was another jeep parked in the alley.

"Can you hear anything important yet?" I asked.

"Nope, it's hard to hear through brick." She answered.

"I think these are just barracks anyway, there has to be an office or something around here." I said, peeking around yet another corner.

For several minutes we made our way around the base completely undetected. We had a few close calls, but they still had no idea we were here. Eventually we found ourselves in a tight spot at the far end of the base.

"Are you sure the offices are this way?" I asked as we made our way to another alley between 2 buildings.

"If I heard it properly, yeah, but that guy may have been drunk so I don't know." She answered.

"You can't tell if..."

"Shhh" She interupted me.

"So Larry who called you today?" An unknown soldier said as he walked out of the building in front of us.

"It was my brother, you know the car salesman in town?" Said Larry in reply, while we tried to stay as quiet as a mouse.

"Yep." Replied the soldier whose name was still unknown.

"He told me some crazy story that one of his cars was haunted by a ghost." Larry continued. "I told him he knows he shouldn't be drinking so much on the job."

Thankfully at this point they seemed to be walking the other way.

"You didn't wipe his memory did you?" I said as quietly as I could, to which she just gave me a very annoyed look and didn't say anything at all.

Eventually the two soldier were far enough away we could progress to the next building undetected.

"That last building was the mess hall, maybe we could just camp out here and wait, the ones in charge should come by eventually." I said.

"What if they already came and left for lunch, you don't want to be hiding out in here for several hours do you?" She said.

"Yeah, you have a point, but what if they're here right now and not at the office?" I asked.

"Ok, we'll check it out, I need to get near a window." She replied.

We found a window along the side of the building, then she crouched down beneath it and closed her eyes.

"So what do you hear?" I asked.

"About 20 people thinking at once." She sassily replied . "Give me a minute to sort this out."

1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . min . . . . . . . . . . . . ute . . . . . . . . . . la . . . . . . . . . . . . . ter . . . . . . . . . . .

"They're not in there." She suddenly replied as I was about to zone out from boredom.

"You sure? " I asked.

"Yes, I can't find any information that someone in charge would know."

"Like what?" I asked out of curiousity.

"Like . . . . um . . . . I don't know." She hesitated to answer.

"How do you even know what you're looking for?" I asked, somewhat concerned about her reliability now.

"Well, they would know their own rank atleast." She defended.

"True, but do you know the ranks?" I asked, doubtful she knew, I didn't even know them that well.

"No, but they should be higher up shouldn't they? And there's only so many hire ups. So many in there think they are a private, with a few lieutenants, so that can't be what we're looking for."

"True those are some of the lower ranks, what do the lieutenants know, who do they answer too?"

"Um...let me see." She said as she closed her eyes and went back to concentrating. Then she stayed silent for a few seconds. "Ok, there's apparently a Field Commander Jessup, that's who they get their orders from."

"No way, Jeff Jessup?" I asked.

"Yep, you recognize him?" She confirmed my suspicion.

"You don't?" I asked, forgetting where I was for a moment.

"I wasn't born in your world Cj." She reminded me.

"That's fine, I don't know who he is either." I said.

"Then why did you . . . . . " She said as she realized I was just messing around, letting out a sigh before saying " Nevermind, and no more fooling around, let's just get going."

She crawled out from under the window and stood up.

"You know where the offices are?" I asked.

"Yes, if I heard right he should still be there now be quiet some people are going to leave the building again." She replied. Seconds later a large group of soldiers left the building, we quietly moved around to the back so they wouldn't see us, and waited for them to pass before procceeding.

From there we continued to make our way towards the offices, alleyway to alleyway.

"Please be advised, a suspicious vehicle has been located outside the perimeter, we believe that someone may be trying to enter the base without authorization." Somebody said over a speaker phone that was attached to a telephone poll nearby, I hadn't noticed it until now.

"Oh no they found us." She panicked.

"No they didn't, if they did they would've set the alarms off or something." I tried to reassure her. "We don't even know if they're talking about our vehicle."

"Who else would it be?" She asked.

"I don't know, just stop worrying about it." I said, again trying to get her to stop worrying. "It's no big deal, they don't even know we're in the base."

A jeep suddenly rumbled on by down the road, thankfully nobody riding it seemed to notice us.

Eventually we reached the offices without being spotted, so once again, Phoebe hid underneath a window, closed her eyes, and began to listen, while I stood by and tried to keep watch.

"This is going to take awhile." She quietly said. "Lots of information to go through."

"Ok well, If somebody comes I'm going to have to pull you away, you know that right?" I said.

"I know." She quietly agreed. "Now shh so I can concentrate."

"Ok." I said as I quietly sat down next to her.

Even though I was trying to stay on guard, I dozed off for a little bit without meaning too, because of this, I don't know how long we were in that alleyway, only that the first thing I felt when I awoke was her lips against my cheek.

"Come on you goofball, we can leave now."

"wha?" I awoke in an extremely confused state.

"You were supposed to keep watch while I went soul-searching for information." She quietly said. "But then you just sat by me and fell asleep."

"Oh...sorry baby girl." I apologized.

"You better be sorry, I'm a ghost now, you got me killed." She said, trying to scare me.

"Oh really?" I replied, not buying it at all."So they just killed you and left me asleep?"

"Well, atleast you're not tired enough for that to work." She said as she crawled out from under the window and stood up.

"Come on Cj, get up, let's get out of here."

"So there's no portal?" I asked.

"There is, but it's not on the base." She replied.

"Explain." I said as I stood up as well.

"They don't want something to escape from the portal and destroy the base from the inside, so they're testing it in a barn a few miles away from here, that way if something escapes they have time to mount a proper response before it damages the base or the town."

"You sure?" I asked.

"As sure as I can be." She answered.

"I guess that will have to do, let's get out of here then, and then we can get some sleep."

"And the portal?" She asked.

"Sleep first, portal later." I replied.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, since we may need to fight." She rhymed, likely without meaning too.

"You're damn right, I'm right, you thing of light. My wife I love with all my might."

I playfully rhymed as I took her hand.

"Oh stop it you thing of night, if I can't focus I can't do this right." She said, trying not to laugh. "Ok . . . ok, I'll teleport us outside the fence, then we'll need to backtrack to the car."

"Ok, sounds good." I replied.

Moments later she teleported us beyond the fence, from there we walked around the base back towards the car, through a line of trees, along the way, we had to dodge one patrol squad that was looking through the trees for us, probably as a result of finding our car. They were well equipped with m1 carbines and a jeep, but Phoebe could teleport so they really didn't have much hope of finding us, all we had to do was stay on the other side of the treeline to avoid the eyes of the men in the watchtowers around the perimeter of the base, and our return trip to the car was a cakewalk compared to our journey to the office.

Once we got to the car, however, there was another soldier looking through it, who seemed to be in the middle of going through Phoebe's purse and at the current moment seemed to be fascinated with Phoebe's cellphone, even though the battery died several days ago in the ruins.

"That's my phone." Phoebe said as she realized what he was looking at.

"Your what?" Said the soldier as he turned to face her.

"Wha...what the fuck are you?" He said, surprised by her appearence.

Before he could say much more, she teleported behind him and quickly put him to sleep

"That jerk went through my purse." She said in an annoyed manner as she gathered up her things that the soldier had carelessly tossed on the ground, including a bubble gun and her pokeballs, it was a miracle he never thought to press one of the buttons.

"Let's get out of here." She said after she finished collecting her belongings.

"Agreed" I said as I picked up his m1 garand, which was haphazardly propped up against the car.

"You're taking his gun?" She asked.

"Might as well, it's an m1 carbine. If nothing else, if we end up in a more modern world we could sell it to make some quick money, they were worth about 2 grand pre-disaster, that could get us pretty far." I said, trying to convince her to let me keep it. It's important to note I still had my bubblegun that I stole from the space police, so I was slowly building up a handy collection of weapons.

"Allright, come on then." She said.

"Awesome, thanks baby girl." I replied as I got in the car, throwing the rifle into the back seat.

We left the area, and headed down the highway to the next town, thinking we weren't quite safe staying in the first.

Leaving the rifle in the car, I checked into a hotel, just as easilly as I had done the night before, once I was in the room, Phoebe teleported up to join me.

"Ok, we'll stay here for a few hours, get some rest, then we'll go for the barn." I said after I realized she was in the room with me.

"Ok." She replied.

At this point it was maybe 2 or 3 in the afternoon, when we finally left the hotel, it was around 7 in the evening, a clock in the room helped us confirm the time. Just like before, we had no money so we had to sneak out without paying.

"I really hope this doesn't become a habit once we get out of here." I said, it felt so weird to be on the run again, without an apocalypse to blame for it.

"It won't, because once we get out of here we'll actually have money." She replied.

"You promise?" I asked.

"I promise I won't, I don't know about you." She replied.

"Fair enough." I said.

We were heading down a gravel road now, past several fields, and huge, red, wooden, barns unlike anything I had ever seen, and there were even windmills that actually powered things and weren't just a fancy lawn decoration, brick silos, corn cribs, tiny little sheds, and all manner of agricultural buildings, that would likely all be demolished by the end of the century. In fact, by the time I was born all these buildings were obsolete, and there were not very many of them left. It's weird how barns have become an icon of farming, but like steam engines have become an icon of trains, they generally don't build them anymore, and there's really not too many of them left.

Anyway, as we headed down the road and I began to realize just how much agriculture had changed over the century, Phoebe was trying to remember where the particular barn was that we were looking for. Unfortunately, it was far from the only barn out here, and the sight of several others began to make her second guess her self as she tried to remember the one she had seen in the mind of the field commander, which was big and red, just like the many she had seen out the window as we were driving by. She slowly came to the realization, that she perhaps, hadn't picked up the most useful information.

"Can we stop for a second? I need to think." She called out from the backseat.

"What's wrong? "I asked.

"I can't remember which barn it is." She said.

"So we're lost?" I asked.

"No, just wait, let me think." She said. "The next turn is a left, so you can keep going."

"What?" I asked, starting to get a bit confused.

"I'm trying to think ok? All these roads look very similiar." She said.

"No they don't, the one back there was green." I pointed out.

"Well that was an exception." She defended, as I reached a crossroad and turned left.

"Ok now, three more crossroads then turn right at the fourth, and I think the third barn on the left is the one we're looking for." She said.

"Ok." I replied.

"Or maybe it was the fifth." She said, hesitantly.

"Or maybe it's the one with obvious military guards standing outside?" I suggested.

"I don't know, but try the third one first." She answered.

"You sure it was after three crossroads or 4?" I asked, halfway serious and halfway just teasing her.

"Cj stop, I don't need anymore confusion." She said in a tone that suggested she was just a bit overwhelmed. "It was three, I know it was three...I'm pretty, no wait, maybe it was...four... my head hurts."

"Calm down baby girl, we have enough to time to do some exploring, the portal isn't going anywhere." I said, sincerely trying to calm her down. As long as she managed to navigate us to the same general area as the portal, we would probably be able to find it within another hour or so, and I was 100% certain we were close, it couldn't have been more than a few miles away.

And so we searched, we went down one road, and when we didn't find anything suspicious we turned around at the other end of the section, and headed down another road, in kind of a blocky "S" pattern. Then we came across a farm on the right, which, if we hadn't turned around, would have been on the left, that had a pair of shiny black jeeps and a black ford sedan deluxe, which would have been fairly new at the time, parked out front. Civilian jeeps did exist after the war, in fact there were even models that tried to be as close to a roadster as possible, but the fact that there were two of them and both were painted black made them stick out, just like the shiny black ford that couldn't have been more than a year or so old. In addition, there was man standing by the entrance, and another on the porch of the farmhouse. They were wearing normal clothes, but they seemed to be standing guard. They watched us very carefully as we drove by, and while our suspicions had been building from the sight of the jeeps then of the men themselves, they were confirmed by what Phoebe said next.

"I think this is the place Cj, I can hear that the guy on the porch is guarding something." She said as we drove past "The guy by the barn is too far away".

"Yep, that's what I was begining to think too." I said.

"Ok, let's wait till we get out of site, then we can park and move in on foot."

"Ok." She said.

Moments later a third jeep came up over a hill on the horizon a few moments passed as drew near, and only moments after we could confirm that it to, was painted black, the driver tacked a flashing blue light on the windshield and tried to block us. I had to go into the ditch on the side of the road to get around them, and once I did that they turned around and tried to chase us.

"Why are they chasing us?" Phoebe asked.

"They must recognize our car from earlier." I replied. "They must have come from the base, we need to get away and ditch the car fast before they call in reinforcements."

Moments later the jeep then put it's siren on.

Now jeeps are not the fastest things, but our car really wasn't that much faster, and the dirt roads were not helping. With the primitive suspension, 45 was about all I could manage without losing control and plowing into the ditch. Jeeps topped out at around 60, though whether the road would give them issues or not was beyond me.

"Pheebles you're going to need to teleport us out." I said.

"But we're moving, we could get hurt." She replied.

"We'll have to take that risk." I said as she intently watched to pursuing jeep through the back window.

"Let me try something." She said as she closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" I said.

Everything went white for a moment, and when that went away I saw that the road had suddenly changed and I needed to grab the wheel very quickly to keep the car from speeding into a ditch. The farm appeared on the horizon again, just as another black jeep was leaving to join the pursuit.

"How did you?" I looked back as soon as I had the car under control "Pheebles?"

She was out cold.

"How many times have I told you not to push your limits like that?" I said, not that she could hear me anyway. It would fall on me to get us to the portal. Of course, now we couldn't teleport into the base, it was a mute point. With no other option, I turned around, and explored the backroads for a bit. She woke up before I could make it back to town.

"Where are wwe?" She quietly asked in a very woozy voice.

"Oh good, you're awake, I wasn't sure how long you'd be out." I replied as I brought the car to a stop, relieved of my slowly encroaching fear that she had died. "You knocked yourself out so we could escape, I thought you'd be out for a few hours so I started to head back to the city. I mean what was I supposed to do? Drag you to the portal and hope nobody would spot us?"

"it's ok..." She said, still woozy.

"Allright so that didn't go as planned and they're looking for us now." I said.

"Mhm, except they think they're still chasing you." She woozily suggested.

"You've been out a few minutes, they aren't that stupid, they probably think we've outran them by now and given up. We need to be very careful now, because now they've probably passed our car's information to the police." I said.

"They probably think it's some kind of ghost car." She said, continueing to speak in a very woozy voice.

"Yeah, probably." I said. "Just let me know when you're ready to go back."

"Well, start heading there then." She said, trying without success to hide how exhausted she was.

"Are you ready though? I asked. " Can't have you falling unconcious again when we get there."

"I won't, I promise, I'll be ready by the time we get back." She replied, her woozyness seemingly begining to fade, or maybe she just became better at hiding it, I concluded that it must have been a little bit of both.

"We'll see." I said, now planning to turn around once again.

A few minutes later we were back on the same road that the mysterious barn was on, and at this time she was still lying down across the backseat as the car rattled down the road. How she found that seat to be even remotely comfortable was beyond me. The car, with it's wafer thin wheels and primitive suspension, was a rattletrap down these dirt roads.

Anyway, I pulled over a few hundred feet away from the barn, in order to stay out of site.

"Allright we're here." I said as I looked back to check on her.

"Already?" She asked, yawning as she sat up.

"You're still tired." I said.

"Mhm...so?" She cutely asked. "We'll just get through this to the next world and then we can rest."

"I don't want you to hurt yourself, you know that?" I said, not wanting her to push herself too hard.

"I know, but we have to do this Cj."

"The longer we stay here, the more they'll look for us, the harder it will be to leave." She said, apparently giving up on trying to hide how tired she was.

" Yes, but..." I paused for a moment to think of a reason, of course, she took advantage of that pause to interupt me again.

"Cj, the more we wait . . . . -yawns- . . . . the more of an uphill battle it becomes." She interupted.

"Yeah, but Pheebles." I attempted to defend, only for her to interupt me again.

"I can handle it . . . . . . . . . don't worry." She insisted.

"No...we're going back to town." I said as I turned the car around again.

"No, Cj, wait." She yelped.

- a few seconds of 1930's era car rolling down the road without any dialog.-

She suddenly teleported out of the car on her own, it took me a few seconds to notice.

"God dammit Pheebles."

She was behind me on the side of the road, walking in the opposite direction.

I stopped the car turned around, again, and pulled up alongside her.

"Get back in the car, this is ridiculous." I demanded.

"No." She said, sternly. "Let's get out of here already."

"Pheebles." I said, sternly, annoyed, and increasingly worried she would get herself killed.

She was more tired than she thought she was, however.

"It hurts." She suddenly cried out of of pain and exhaustion as she fell to her knees..

"Yeah, well I told you. " I said as I got out and tried to help her get back into the car. "You're at your limits, we shouldn't go any further. "

"This headache won't go away." She complained.

"Well there's not much I can do about it." I said. "Will potions help?"

"No." She said, trying not to cry, she never had much pain tolerance.

"I want Charley back." She said as she managed to get back up.

"I thought you said you had a headache?" I asked.

"I do, but I want Charley back too, that's why I want to get out of this place. Come on, lets go." She said as she offered her hand.

"You know, I'm pretty sure he would want you to come back too, alive." I said, unwilling to go.

"I miss our son!" She exlaimed, finally bursting into tears, I think the pain was starting to make her a bit delusional.

"Calm down, you're starting to scare me." I said, unsure of what was going to happen.

"I'm sorry Cj, it's really hard for me to concentrate right now." She said as she tried to regain her composure.

"I know, so just ..." I tried to speak but she interupted me again.

"Just take my hand and let's get out of here." She offered me her hand again.

" No...Pheebles, Just wait." I said, refusing to go. "You're not ready, and if we go through the portal, and we have to fight our way to safety on the other side we're screwed, and that's if we can even get there without you falling unconcious, let's be smart about this ok?"

"You realize if you teleport us there and fall unconscious, I somehow have to drag you passed the guards, to the portal. "

"You have your pokemon, I have my pokemon." She reasoned.

"There's no reason to use them unless we have to, we have limited potions, we should save them for when we need them." I said.

"Why can't we just go now?" She said.

"Because we don't have too! If we go now it could easilly all go wrong." I answered.

"Come on, we still have our hotel room back in town, we'll stay there, we'll regroup, we'll be out of there by tomorrow." I said. "Is that allright princess can you wait one day so it's not almost suicidal?"

"Princess?" She asked.

"Pheebles, please, just get in the car."

"I can't move.." She said.

"Pheebles?" I asked out of concern as she suddenly collapsed.

"I knew this was a bad idea." I said as I dragged her royal unconciousness to the car.

Once again, I headed back to the hotel in the second town. I never officially checked out and I still had my key.

As for Phoebe, I put her in her big, puffy disguise coat, and carried her up to the room, over my shoulder, with great difficulty and so many awkward stares that I might as well have just walked in naked. Somehow, despite all this, nobody figured out she wasn't human.

"Is she ok?" A passerby asked.

"Yeah, she's just had to much to drink."

After that highly embarassing moment was over, I put her in bed, and we just layed there for awhile, I didn't know when she would wake up, but I knew it was best that I was there when she did.

An hour passed, as I sat down and watched some tv, two hours, the front desk guy came up and gave us a complimentary elixir of sorts, I said it wasn't neccesary, but if we could get the room for free for a few nights, that would be fine as we really had no money and were only planning to stay for a day or so. Thankfully he agreed.

Three hours, I was starting to get tired myself. Four hours, I was in bed beside her and about to fall asleep. Another three hours passed while I slept until she shook me awake.

"Cj..wake up where are we?" She asked out of confusion.

"What?" I said. "Oh...your finally awake...again...ehehe."

"That's not funny, I could've been dead." She said.

"You still had a pulse, I knew you were still alive." I said as I pulled her close. "I'm glad your back. You don't wanna know how awkward it was to get you up here."

"Up here...like heaven? Where's Charley?" She asked.

"No, we're back in the hotel." I said.

"Oh...ok...good." She said. "no, wait, that means, Charley is still."

"Shhh..it's ok, let's just get some more sleep." I said as I gave her a kiss.

"ooooh Cj..." She said with great sincerity as she wrapped her arms around me.

"Let yourself sleep baby girl." I whispered softly. "Get your mind off Charley, ok, he's allright. You need to focus on the task at hand, and right now, you need to sleep."

"I'll try." She said, softly as she closed her eyes.

The next morning came and went, then it was time to return to the barn once again. This time Phoebe followed me out the door, staying closely behind me so nobody could see her face. That way nobody that layed their eyes on yesterday's spectacle wouldn't be asking where she was, or what happened, or think of the horrible, awful things a situation like that could imply, and she could still hide the fact that she wasn't human.

After we left the hotel for the last time, we eventually found ourselves on the same road as the barn, hopefully for the last time as well. After we left the car a little ways up the road, Phoebe teleported us onto the property without any issues. There were 4 black jeeps parked on one side of the barn now, more than yesterday. Once again there was a guard on the porch of the house, and one in front of the barn. There was even a machine gun sticking out the back window of the house, that couldn't be seen from the road. I wasn't sure how useful a position like that would be though. After a few minutes of sneaking around, we realized it was impossible to get into the barn without knocking out a few of the guards in the way. Just teleporting in was too dangerous, we couldn't be absolutely sure there was nobody inside. The barn could have been reinforced with concrete for all we knew, and behind that concrete could be guards with tommy guns or grease guns, or other early smgs. Before you say anything, yes, there were windows, but we couldn't see through them, instead of glass, they were made of sheets of metal, painted black and made to look like ordinary windows from a distance but up close you couldn't see through them at all, a clever illusion, and our first sign asside from the guards that this barn was out of the ordinary. I considered having Rhyhorn smash through the front door, but if we accidently damaged the portal machine there'd be no escape from this alternate post-war universe. So we took it slow.

First the guard in front of the house was knocked out, then the one in front of the barn. It was a piece of cake so far. Moments later a third soldier emerged from the barn, and soon, he too was fast asleep.

Barely a second later one came out the front door of the house, and another poked his head out of an upstairs window along the side. I shot this one with the bubble gun as there was no way Phoebe could get to him easilly.

Things started to escalate as Phoebe knocked out the one that came out of the house.

Three came out of the barn, and inspected their two comrades who were fast asleep. Phoebe had already teleported out of sight, and I didn't even know where she was at the moment. I was hiding behind the corner of the barn that was facing the house, doing my best not to be seen, as one of the three new soldiers began to sprint towards the house to investigate his sleeping comrades over there.

I shot him as he passed with the bubble gun immobilizing him, and getting the immediate attention of the other two, who immediately drew their pistols and advanced towards me. They didn't even make it to the corner before Phoebe came up behind them , put them both to sleep, and then quickly sat down beside me.

"I think that's all of them."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know."

"Give it a few seconds, if nobody else comes out, we'll go in."

The next person to emerge was not a soldier, but a man in a white lab coat, a scientist. He had his hands up in the air, attempting to surrender.

"D-don't hurt me please...I surrender, peacefully." He said as he looked around, wanting to confront whoever took out all the soldiers.

"Relax, we just want to use the machine." Phoebe said, directing his attention towards the corner of the barn we were hiding behind.

"You know what it does?" He said.

"It's a portal right?" Phoebe asked.

"Yes but, we don't know where it goes." The nervous scientist answered."You didn't have to kill them."

"They're not dead, they're asleep, or immobilized." Phoebe said. "Show us inside quickly."

"Ooo-ok." Answered the scientist.

We emerged from behind the corner.

"What are you?" He asked when he saw Phoebe, who wasn't wearing her disguise right now.

"That's not important, just show us the machine." I said.

"Ok fine." He answered.

'It's not?" Phoebe asked .

"Not right now Pheebles, let's get going before backup arrives." I answered.

"Yeah, you're right, we should hurry." She concluded.

We headed into the barn behind the scientist, I kept my wits about me however, of course I didn't completely trust him. Inside the barn were a few control panels, and a large, cylindrical chamber, a very odd looking portal machine compared to the ones we normally used.

"Allright start the portal up, then you go in first."

"What? But.." He said, as he pressed some buttons on a control panel.

"We have to be sure your not trying to screw us over by sending us into some place that will instantly kill us." I continued.

Phoebe placed her hands upon his head, and put him to sleep.

"Pheebles." I said, wondering why she knocked out the only one who knew how to fire up the machine.

"I read his mind, he was going to stall us until reinforcements arrived." She said as she began to press several buttons on the control panel. "I saw how to fire it up though too, just give me a little bit."

Eventually she pulled a lever which cause the cylindrical chamber to open up.

"Get in, I'll join you in a moment." She said.

I stepped into the chamber, and she joined me right as the doors began to close.

She took my hand.

"Here goes nothing." She said.

"yep."

The outside of the chamber began to spin around, and a bluish-green vortex began to form on the ceiling. This vortex slowly descended until it passed over us, with the machine making a loud whirring noise. As the vortex soon covered the entire chamber, everything went black and all fell silent, but only for a moment.

I took a moment to examine my new surroundings.

We seemed to be in the bottom of a canyon.

"You didn't forget your purse did you?" I asked.

"No I got it here." She answered.

"Good." I said.

"So now where do we go?" She asked.

"Well, um... I don't know." Was the only reply I could give.

"Is there anyone around?"

"No, just silence." She replied as she gazed up at the canyon wall.

"I can teleport us up over the canyon wall, we can get a better view that way." She suggested.

"Ok, let's do it." I replied as I took her hand.

She teleported us over the cliff face a moment later.

There were a few very tall rocky outcroppings, and a vast desert that stretched clear to the horizon. It looked like pictures I had seen of Arizona, but whether we were actually in Arizona or somewhere else was beyond me. It also seemed to be ten degrees warmer up here than in the canyon.

"Great, another desert . . . . . . . . " I said, realizing once again it would be atleast a few hours until we found signs of civilization, if there was any here. " Well, come on, let's see what we can find."

We spent the next few hours walking along the edge of the canyon, there was nothing out here and we were both getting thirsty as well. There was a small stream of water at the bottom of the canyon, so she took my hand and teleported us both down there once again. Once there, we took the bottle of this weird elixir that we got from the hotel, which was basically snake oil, a supposedly medical concoction, that was actually pretty useless. Anyway, we dumped it out, and used it to hold water, which, with HellBlade's assistance, we were able to purify. By the time we were done, the labels were burnt off the bottle, and the bottle itself was coated with soot. After we felt like we were ready to continue, we continued to follow the canyon until the stream became so wide there wasn't anywhere to walk. So from there, Phoebe teleported us back to the top, and we continued yet again.

By sunset, after we had walked for longer than either of us could even remember, we came across an iron truss bridge over a narrower part of the canyon.

"There's a bridge!" Phoebe exclaimed as her ears perked up, breaking a silence that had lasted for atleast half an hour.

"That means there's a road baby girl." I said, relieved that our several mile walk may be comming to an end soon.

"Mhm." She agreed. "Do you think there will be anycars?"

"Well, I would think so." I replied.

When we made it to the bridge we waited around for a car to come by, so maybe we could hitch a ride. Unfortunately, night fell before a single car arrived.

"It's getting cold, can we build a fire or something?" Phoebe asked shortly after the sun went down.

"Yeah, I'm getting cold too, start collecting sticks and brush, we're going to need a lot to get a decent fire going." I said while gathering up some brush myself. There weren't alot of trees out here, just some grass and bushes, both of which were fairly dry. 20 minutes later we had a huge pile gathered up, and a small, but hungry fire that would quickly eat through it unless we found something more substantial to burn. It was only minutes later I realized our fire was going to be short lived.

"This isn't going to work, we can't keep the fire going, and HellBlade can't just keep using flamethrower." I said as I threw more kindling on the fire.

"I know." Phoebe answered.

"What about my coat?" She asked, offering to throw it on the fire.

"It's not going to burn any slower, and then you'll just be colder." I replied, surprised she even suggested it.

"If only we had gulpin here, sludge burns pretty slow." She said.

"Uh, isn't it also poisonous?" I replied.

"Oh...yeah...kind of." She said.

"Just kind of?" I asked, jokingly.

"Well, maybe a little more than that." She said.

There was still no sign of a car on the road, we must have really been out in the middle of nowhere this time.

"What about razor leaves? Will they burn?" She asked.

"What we need is logs." I replied.

"Can you put me to sleep? If you can't it's going to be a long night." I asked, knowing we were unlikely to find civilization until tomorrow.

"Not when it's cold, it's too dangerous." She replied.

"Damn, really?" I asked.

"If it gets too cold, I can't guarantee you'll wake up." She continued.

"Yeah, that makes sense." I said.

"Why don't you sleep, I'll keep feeding the fire." She suggested.

"It's more important that you sleep." I replied.

"I already slept enough, You made sure of that." She defended.

"Ok, fine, but we'll switch in a few hours." I said.

"Ok, here, lay down, as long as the fires is going, I can put you to sleep." She said as she placed her hand on my head.

"Hey Pheebles wait a minute." I said moving her hand away before she knocked me out."

"What?" She said, removing her hand.

"Goodnight baby girl." I said after giving her a kiss.

"Goodnight honey, I'll see you in a little while." She replied giving me a warm embrace.

"Now lay down, unless you want to fall." She said.

"Well come with me then." I said.

"Fine." She said as she laid down beside me.

I hadn't realized it before but the night sky was so clear and filled with stars.

"Before you put me to sleep can we just lay here for a little bit?" I said.

"Sure, but just for a bit." She replied.

"We don't want the fire to die." She insisted.

"Oh we have a little bit of time." I replied.

"Look at all the stars." I said.

"Mhm...so?" She replied.

"It's been a long day, on a long adventure, after all that walking today, atleast it has a nice end." I continued.

"Yeah, I guess so." She replied.

"I know you miss the kids, but Pheebles, come on." I continued as she used her powers to throw more grass and twigs on the fire. " I know you're trying to hide it, Pheebles, how scared you are."

"It's ok...i'm scared too, afraid we'll never find a way back, especially in situations like this, where it doesn't look like we have any leads at all." I continued. "You don't have to hide it from me baby, it's ok, but come on, it's just you and me, we're alone...under a sky full of stars."

"Pheebles, what I'm trying to say is you're allowed to enjoy it, think of it less like we have to get back to Charley as fast as possible, and more like an adventure, like the old days when we were on the run." I said, having forgotten the point I was trying to make several sentences ago.

"Wow, you really are tired." She said.

"Am I now?" I said with a chuckle.

"Do you think they're up there...somewhere?" She asked.

"Like are we in the same universe as him, but on a different planet?"I asked in return, not really sure what she meant.

"Yeah." She replied.

"I don't know." I replied.

I kissed her on the cheek.

"I love you baby girl." I said. "You can put me to sleep now."

She kissed me back on the lips, and as she did so I started to lose conciousness.

"Goodnight my love." I heard her whisper before I slipped into a deep sleep. She tended to the fire for a few minutes before interupting my dreams.

"Cj." She said, as my self-created dreamworld faded out and was quickly forgotten.

"Oh hey baby girl, miss me?"

"You're asleep right in front of me." She replied. "But yes...it's lonely out here."

"So now what do you want to do?" I asked?

"You want to see Charley?" She asked.

"If it's not really him, no.." I answered." remember that world that granted wishes? That's just...creepy."

"True." She replied. "I probably should just let you sleep, it will be better for you, that way all of you can sleep, right now the part of you that's talking to me isn't. "

" Wake me up in a few hours, then I'll tend the fire while you sleep." I said.

"I will" She replied.

And so a long day led to an equally long night...it just didn't want to end. We hadn't even found anyone to talk to, or even a place to set up basecamp, we couldn't even begin to look for a portal, until we finally got out of this wasteland.