-chapter 35-
I know it was an odd place to break the chapter, but for us the day mostly consisted of just riding on the train for several hours, not much of note really happened during that time. We couldn't even play I Spy, as there really wasn't much outside the window but the strange black trees. Occasionally the train had to stop to change a switch, and this served as our main way of contacting the crew. A couple times the train over ran the switch and had to back up in order to change it, this cost us some time, but considering the crew had been working for several hours it was forgivable. When it came time to explore a world and stop for a break, Jack and his crew were exhausted and everyone was starving as we hadn't had much to eat since breakfast.
We disembarked the train on the siding and walked to the portal, a usual precaution in case the tracks on the other side were in bad condition. The portal led to what seemed to be complete and total darkness.
"Maybe this is some kind of nothingness world." Henry said to nobody in particular.
"Allright Pheebles, use flash already." I said, disturbed by the complete lack of light.
"Just give me a moment." She said.
"Flash?" Claire asked.
Good thing it was dark because everyone was probably looking at me in confusion, confusion that was laid to rest when Phoebe's hands began to glow, allowing us to see our surroundings.
"Oohh." Claire said.
"Yeah it's not what you think weirdo." Phoebe chirped as everyone else tried to figure out where we were.
We were able to see that it was some sort of shed, for a trolley, in fact there was an old trolley car in here on an adjacent track. We stumbled around for a bit before finding an exit through a door on the side . Outside the trolley house there was an abandoned station, but more surprisingly there was a paved road nearby, with cars traveling on it! Of course this was trouble as we would need money to buy things and we couldn't stay here for long or the bubblemen would easilly find us as there wasn't enough usable track to get Jack and his train all the way through the portal. Not to mention the attention a vintage steam train would recieve on an abandoned trolley line. So we simply found a source of wood for a fire, in this case some old discarded pallettes we found in the trolley shed, and then we retreated back to the nexus. The palletes provided enough wood to start a fire by the side of the tracks and cook some food. The quiet, foggy atmosphere of the nexus made it one of the strangest places to cook a meal, but it worked out none the less.
"I thought our mission was to do some exploring." Claire said while we all sat around the fire, aside from Jack, for obvious reasons.
"We would, but every hour we stay here is another hour the bubblemen gain on us, we just don't have time to explore this new world right now." I said. "Especially since the train can't fit through the portal. I mean it's kind of a dead giveaway to where we are."
"Do you think this railway ever ends?"
"I don't know Pheebles." I replied. "My only guess is it has portals to every reality, aside from ones that don't have railways. "
"It has ends though." The engineer spoke up. "Sodor for one and Muffle Mountain is another, as for this branch though, we've never seen the end, we passed our home world awhile back."
"How does this railway even exist?" Henry asked. "Was it built? Does it have a purpose?"
"It could literaly be any reason." I replied. "This could all be an interface for a very elaborate portal machine in a lab somewhere, it could be some kind of ghost world, it could also have been created with magic. It's origin and reason for existence could litterally be anything."
"Magic?" Claire asked.
"In some universes magic is real." Phoebe replied.
"Is there a reality where the Jetsons are real?" Henry asked.
"Yeah probably, and every other cartoon." I replied.
"What's the Jetsons?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah what is it?" Claire followed.
Apparently Henry and I were the only ones that knew what they were. Actually it was more surprising both our worlds shared a tv show, but that's more fridge logic than anything.
"It's an old tv show, came out in like the 60s?" I replied. "It's about a typical 1950s american family set in the 1950s concept of the future, which never actually came to be."
"I used to watch it alot as a kid." Henry said. "Before Silverwind."
"I've seen it a few times but before the disaster it wasn't on tv all that often and apparently hasn't been since because Pheebles didn't even know about it." I replied.
"I don't remember everything I see on tv Cj." Phoebe commented.
"Your world still has Tv?" Henry asked.
"Yeah, but you can't tell what's on the channels most of the time, basically what would be illegal pirate stations basically took over."
"What do you mean like there's no tv guides?" Henry asked.
"No I mean, oh wait, you don't know what a DVR is do you?" I asked.
"Nope, is it like a VCR?" Henry asked.
"Actually that's not too far off, it's just all digital, no tapes." I replied. "But there's also normally a menu and then you can see what shows are on each channel. Except since the disaster most of the pirate stations are lazy and don't fill that part out. " Do you play around with that tv in the room?or hell with Claire's Tv when we were in her apartment?"
"Not much." Henry replied.
"Those two were playing around with the tv all night." Claire pointed to the engine crew.
"What the bloody is hell is a VCR?" The engineer asked.
"It's like a box. You know how a film projector works? It's got the spinny wheel and the film and stuff?"
"I think so."
"Ok you take those spinny wheels, and you put them in a plastic box about like this big, and that's a video tape, then you take the tape, and put it in the vcr, and the vcr can play the tape, and record new footage onto it, and some of them also have clocks that nobody ever sets. " I said.
"Yep that's exactly right." Henry replied." Then they get replaced by betamax?"
"Nope." I replied. "They get replaced by dvds and dvd players, and netflix, betamax never even had a chance. Few people even know what a VCR is, even fewer know what betamax is or have ever even seen a betamax player."
"Now what is betamax? "The engineer asked.
"It's like a video tape, but it's not. It's like a different company's version of a video tape, same idea, slightly different way around it." I replied. "You pop the tape into a machine and it plays it."
"And dvds?" He asked.
"Same concept, except instead of a big plastic tape, you have a little silvery disc that you pop into a machine and play. They're more compact, they keep better, they have better image quality, but they are sensitive to scratches and you usually can't record anything to them." I replied.
"And netflix?" He asked.
"Well to explain that I have to explain the internet don't I?" I asked.
"I dunno do ya?" The fireman said.
And so somehow I spent most of the evening explaining modern technology to people who were litterally from the past. You'd think the girls would help more, but they pretty much left everything up to me.
Anyway, eventually I exhausted myself and so Phoebe and I retreated to our bus for the night.
"I thought they would never stop asking questions." I said as we got ready for bed.
"I thought you would run out of answers first." Phoebe smugly replied.
"I thought you know, you might have helped me?" I awkwardly said. "Your world is more modern than mine anyway."
"You seemed to have it taken care of." She replied.
"I mean I don't even know how your holographic tvs work." I said.
"They're holograms." She replied.
"Well, yeah, but, how do they make a solid image out of that?" I asked. "How does the screen confine itself to whatever size you set it to be?"
"I don't know." She replied. "How do the big box tvs work?"
"Um . . . . there's some kind of light inside them that has three colors and it scans and it has cathode ray tubes." I began, without really knowing where I was going.
"And they do?" She continued.
"Cathode ray tube things?" I awkwardly said.
"Hah, you ran out of answers." Phoebe replied.
"Ehh, so what, nobody knows how a tv works." I said.
"So we are lovers, let's do lover things." She said as she wrapped her arms around me.
" Ohh allright." I replied as I did the same to her in return. I was in a good mood, and she had been unusually patient and waiting the entire day.
Anyway, the next morning eventually arrived. Once again we went on another long day of traveling. Not even an hour into the trip we came across another train, it was just another train wandering the nexus, nothing spectacular, this one was led by a huge and powerful looking steam locomotive of unfamiliar class and origin. It seemed to be american styled, going by size alone. It was a cab-forward, likely because it was so long visibility would be total crap if the cab was anywhere else. The cab had a very streamlined appearence resembling a classic diesel, in stark constrast to the steaming monstrosity it was attached to. In addition to the cab-forward design, it seemed to be of Garret configuration, with not one, but two boilers, and 3 twelve wheel driver sets. It's wheel configuration was as far as I could tell, 4-12-0 + 0-12-0 + 0-12- 4. It was so big that just the locomotive was longer than our entire train.
After both trains stopped and the crew of our train met with the crew of their train, it was quite a thing to see all those wheels back into the nearest portal track, thankfully it wasn't pulling anything but a rather ordinary looking caboose that seemed to be extremely tiny in comparison to the locomotive. I couldn't make out the railroad that owned it, but odds are it wasn't one I would recognize anyway. I could only imagine the trains that thing was designed to pull or even what gauge it really was, since the nexus seemed to adapt to every train that travelled through it. Hence why subways and other typically elecric Locomotives could operate here. One of the many magical and mysterious properties of this railway. Anyway, once we passed that behemoth of a locomotive, we saw another train a little bit later, it was an 1800s styled passenger train parked on a portal track. The train was facing towards the mainline but the engine, an old west looking 4-6-0, had no fire going, as evident from the lack of smoke. It was just parked there, with no sign of a crew or any passengers. We stopped for a moment to check it out, but it was clear we weren't the first to do so. There wasn't a single chunk of coal in the tender, nor anything of value in the coaches. While things don't age in the nexus, it was clear that it had been parked there for some time, as it had no fuel, and had been picked pretty clean. The where-abouts of it's crew and passengers was uncertain,perhaps they wandered off into the foggy abyss of the obsidian forrest. What would even happen to somebody if they were to do that? It was not something we wanted to find out, but assuming the nexus is a railway through space-time itself, there's really no telling where you would end up, but unlike the portal tracks which always lead to some form of railway, there's no guarantee it would be anywhere safe. Or maybe you'd just loop around and come back through the other side of the tracks. Or maybe there would just be endless fog. That's a scary thought, like the deepest oceans there's no telling what could be lurking out there, hidden from view. Anyway, once we realized there was nothing on the parked train worth scavenging, we talked with the crew to make some plans for the rest of the day before quickly boarding our own train and continuing on our way once again. We spent the rest of the day looking for a world with decent, but abandoned tracks that we could park Jack and the rest of the train inside without being noticed. Then we could stay there for a bit and wait for the bubblemen to pass us. Perhaps we would even leave the train, if we could find another portal, the nexus was cool and all, but good god it was boring. Sadly this wasn't the case. It was almost a solid week of traveling before we would be able to leave the train, by then it was almost like we had forgotten how to adventure. We didn't explore most of the worlds we came across in detail during this time, so I honestly forgot about most of them. Many of them were very similiar, just abandoned industrial landscapes and occasionally a forest, there was one time we ended up on a track that seemed to be high up on a snowy mountain, but it was so cold we couldn't really do much with it, so we just went on to the next portal. Magnum and Cloudela, our only pokemon that could withstand such conditions, were also not the greatest at gathering wood. Mostly because they don't have hands.
Anyway, after about a week of traveling and boredom, something happened.
To put things more specifically we were separated from the train. After just escaping Volkheim, who ever would've thought we'd run across the Space Police again? Well we did, we had just entered the world on foot to make sure the track was ok, like we had done with countless worlds prior, and, like the MIB on the other world, they swarmed us within minutes, unlike the MIB however, they weren't nearly as kind. Right away Phoebe and I were separated from the others as she teleported us away to the roof of a nearby building while the others were trapped in plasma bubbles and arrested for the crime of interdimensional trespassing. I really have to hand it to my babygirl for her amazing reaction time, a split second later we would've been screwed as well.
"Why did we have to run into these guys again?" I asked shortly after realizing I was no longer on the tracks.
"It was going to happen anyway." Phoebe replied. "We escaped the bubblemen and then somebody else has to come along, it's never easy Cj."
"Yeah well it's just our luck." I replied.
"We can't even escape the bubblemen much longer, Jack and the rest of the train are still parked out there." I replied. "If the bubblemen pass by and see him, they'll know we're here."
"Well we got more to worry about than that, we need to save Claire and the others." Phoebe said.
"What is it with you and saving people?" I asked.
"It's the right thing to do Cj." She said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, besides I don't know how to drive a steam train." I said.
"What if we don't go back to the train?" Phoebe asked.
"The space police are here, they have access to portal technology. I don't want to ride on the train anymore, it's driving me crazy." She continued.
"Yeah, I understand." I replied. "It's been awhile since we've seen any action."
"Mhm. " Phoebe replied.
"Well we'll just have to see what we can do." I said.
"But first we have to rescue the others." I said as the rest of our group was shoved into a police van on the streets below.
"And maybe swipe another one of those bubbleguns." I said.
The first one I had ran out of ammo and I had to abandon it so I could carry a much more useful gun at that point. I still had that other pistol with me though in the bus.
"Yeah, maybe." Phoebe said.
"But what about our bus Pheebles?" I asked when I realized leaving the train might mean abandoning it. "And you know Henry will not leave his camaro."
"Let's figure that out later, there's other things to deal with now." She replied as she watched our friends get shoved into an inconspicuous black van on the streets below.
-Meanwhile, at the local space police HQ-
The local space police chief was on the phone with one of the officers that had arrested our friends.
"You mean they're here? " The local police chief asked. "How is that even possible, this universe is litterally on the other side of all existence."
"DNA and subatomic Universal Origin is a 100% match? That's impossible, they can't be the same."
"They came from the nexus huh? Well that explains it a little bit, but still they haven't aged a day. To get from here to universe B, they'd have to be on that railway for 7000 years. I know the nexus exist outside of time, but if you factor in all the individual stops for supplies and fuel."
"No I do not authorize exploration of the nexus, we don't know what they brought with them, that giant robot dinosaur thing could be waiting out there for all we know."
"Look you got their accomplices, bring them in for interogation, and do whatever you need to do to catch them. We can't fail like the others."
"I'm counting on you Linerman, prove to me I didn't give you that promotion for nothing."
(Back to us.)
With nobody chasing us at the moment, we stealthly followed the space police van around, thinking it would eventually lead us to their HQ. Regular city traffic made it very easy to keep up with. It would slowly travel to the end of a block, then it would stop, giving Phoebe plenty of time to teleport us to a rooftop closer to its location. We kept this up for quite awhile without being spotted, until the van pulled into an ordinary looking parking garage, with a large hospital nearby. So Phoebe teleported us to the roof of the parking garage and after waiting awhile to make sure it didn't leave through another exit, I made my way down to the second highest floor while Phoebe stayed on the roof to keep a lookout for the van and to keep out of the sight of civilians who may have been leaving or entering their cars on the lower levels.
While there were several other vehicles parked here and a handful of civilians, we never found the van we were looking for. It was like it had dissapeared. Phoebe was watching the exits from the roof, so we knew it didn't leave the building. This led me to believe there was some kind of secret door somewhere. I had to look around for a moment, but I found an empty spot in one of the corners of the first floor that was painted over with yellow lines even though there was more than enough room for a vehicle to park there. An official looking sign read "No parking anytime, violators will be towed at their own expense." In red letters on a white background. These lines and the accompanying sign weren't in any other corner. And there was seemingly no reason for this non-parking space to exist. It's not like it was next to a fire hydrant or anything. It was just a somewhat isolated corner of a parking no visible seams were present, there was also a noticeable mound of asphault around the space. To the point where it seemed to be about 3 or 4 inches taller than the rest of the floor. So I went over and I stood on the spot for a moment. Which in hindsight was kind of stupid because if I managed to enter the HQ that way I would be surrounded by space police. However, absolutely nothing happened so I was spared from that.
This led me to believe that either something with the equivalent weight of a car had to be parked there to open it, or, more than likely there was some kind of electronic security system that only let certain vehicles through. Which meant that getting inside the hq and rescuing our friends was going to be tricky. So I returned to my beloved on the roof after not accomplishing much of anything.
"What did you find Cj?" She asked after teleporting in behind me right when I was just about to look for her.
"I think there might be a secret door, but I don't think we can get it open." I replied
"Why not?" Phoebe asked."
"I think we need to do a little car shopping at the space police's dealership." I said.
"What?" She asked.
"We need to steal a space police vehicle." I replied.
"How are we going to do that?" She asked.
"It's the space police, I'm surprised they haven't found us yet."
-meanwhile in the space police hq-
"They've been sticking to the rooftops, they followed the van here, they're right outside the door." An officer said as he watched us from behind the safety of a screen.
"Good, now we just need to wait until they're vulnerable." Linerman replied.
"Why not now?" Our unwanted observer asked, curious as to why nobody had been sent after us yet.
"Because we can't make the same mistake the others have, I want a sniper team deployed as soon as possible, we can't go against them head-on , that's never worked in the past." Linerman replied with authority.
"You mean with the bubble guns or the normal ones?" He asked.
"The bubble ones, we want them alive, they might know something useful, and besides, if they're dead we can't imprison them."
"Right, I'll send a team out shortly." The officer replied.
"We'll all head out in a moment." Linerman said. "But we'll keep our distance, and take the other exit."
-meanwhile, Henry and Claire were being interrogated.-
"What do you know about these two or the underground movement against the space police?"
"We don't know anything, they are our friends, they haven't done anything wrong."
" Oh really? You want a list? Grand theft auto, attempted murder of an officer of the space police, unauthorized use of interdimensional portal technology, theft of space police property, assault on an officer, breaking into a space police facility, breaking prisoners out of a space police facility, and interdimensional tresspassing. I guess you don't really consider that last one to be wrong though seeing as you both have done it yourself.
"All we heard is you guys are a bunch of dicks that arrest people for no reason." Henry said.
"It's not no reason, it's the preservation of order and justice." The interrogator said.
"Is that what they told you?" Henry asked. "Do you just arrest everyone that comes through the portals?"
"Intra-dimensional tresspassing is highly illegal." The interrogator said. "Punishable by up to twelve months in prison for a first time offence."
"Says who? "Henry asked.
"The multiversal chairman." The interrogator said. "The leader of the space police."
"Let me talk to him." Henry said.
"Good luck with that." The interrogator said. "He's not even on this world, he's at the space police multiversal HQ, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't even know how to get there, only the sector and planetary chairmen do, it's way above my paygrade. There's rumors that it doesn't even exist and they all just meet at a donut shop somewhere."
"So you mean there's a chance that they made the decision to arrest all these supposed trespassers over donuts?" Henry asked.
"In the name of justice." The interrogator replied.
"Do we get a trial?" Claire summoned the courage to ask.
"This is your trial." The interrogator. "You've already been found guilty."
"We didn't even do anything." Claire vainly defended.
"Interdimensional tresspassing is not a trivial matter." The interogator insisted.
Back to us.
It was quiet up on the roof of the parking building, in stark contrast to the busy, populated streets.
"The people here look weird." Phoebe said as she peeked over the edge of the building. "Their skin is so red."
"They'd probably say the same about us then." I replied.
"What should we do now Cj?" She asked as she climbed down from the ledge.
"I don't know? Head back to the portal?" I suggested.
"Without our friends?" Phoebe asked.
"There's nothing we can do, if their base is here they have it locked up pretty tight. Unless they come after us I don't know if we'll ever be able to get in." I defended.
"Why aren't they comming after us?" She asked.
"I don't know, maybe they aren't as competant here as they are in the other world."
"They showed up pretty quickly when we got here."
"Yeah, but who knows how long that portal has been there, they were probably already watching it, waiting to arrest anyone and anything that came through."
"Yeah, they probably were." She agreed.
"So are we going or not?" I asked.
"Fine Cj, we'll go." She said as she took my hand. "I don't know what you plan to do when we get back to the train though."
"Walk to the next portal, maybe get some more resources to fight these jerks." I replied.
"We don't have time for that Cj." Phoebe replied. "What if we come back and they're not at this base anymore?"
"Well what are we supposed to do Pheebles?"
"I don't know." She replied.
I heard something that sounded like a gunshot in the distance, I saw something that looked like a little orange dot heading towards me but before I could figure out what it was it slammed into my hand so hard that it hurt and pinned me against a car I happened to be standing in front of.
"Ow! what the?!" I exclaimed in confusion.
"Cj?" Phoebe looked at me, equally confused.
More gunshots rang out.
"They're sniping us, get down." Before she could move she got hit in the torso and pinned to car as well. I tried to get free but the plasma was quickly encapsulating my arm. Meanwhile Phoebe was stuck completely.
"Space Police you're under arrest!" A space policeman said as he ran up the ramp to the top floor.
"Pheebles teleport now!" I said.
"I can't reach you!" She cried.
"Just go." I commanded as I tried to kick myself away from the car.
Somehow it worked, but I dislocated my shoulder in the process and it hurt like hell. And there was still a blob of plasma stuck to my hand, and some smaller injuries that aren't worth mentioning to the point where the pain in my shoulder was so bad I wasn't even aware of them at that moment.
At that point I was below the side wall of the building, which protected me from the snipers. Phoebe relaxed for a moment, and teleported out a moment later, leaving a big blob of orange goo stuck to the side of the car. I don't know where she went, and I didn't have time to look as there were more space police men comming up the ramp. Before I could think to do anything though, they became the focus of the sniper fire. Since they had bubbleguns themselves, however, escaping was only a matter of changing a setting on the weapon and shooting themselves again to disolve the goo. So the ones that were hit did so and then they all retreated down the ramp a little ways. This bought me some time to get into my pockets with my one good hand and well, I was panicking, so I intended to send out Magnum, but I sent out aggron instead. I realized my mistake right away, but at that moment, I didn't have time to switch pokemon. Surprisingly the building didn't immediately collapse. That was a good sign. He immediately became the focus of the space police, which was good. Then he took a step to protect his eyes, and the floor held up, but several car alarms went off, while I tried to get magnum's ball from my pocket. The alarm got one of the space policeman so distracted he was almost completely covered in plasma.
"Just stay still aggron . . . . . I don't think . . . . the building can support you." I struggled to say with the pain in my shoulder.
He looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world for sending him out at this moment.
To make matters worse the space police switched to using real bullets on him, after they figured out the goo wasn't going to be effective. That said the bullets weren't much more effective on him, just slightly more annoying. The sniper fire was still comming in, aggron was getting really annoyed, and decided to carefully pick up a nearby car and throw it at the space police, the car missed the space police completely, as he was just too slow and they saw it comming, it bounced against the floor, and flipped over the edge of the building, I didn't see it hit the ground, but it's safe to say it was completely totaled.
"Don't kill them ok? . . . . . We don't need to get in anymore trouble." I said.
The space police decided to switch back to plasma and start teleporting, with the wrist-watch type devices that allow them to do so. It had been awhile since I had seen them. I needed to get one of those things. They started to circle around him and shoot at him like crazy. One was unlucky and got hit by the apparently rogue sniper, then aggron completely disobeyed me, ripped him off the floor as he screamed and threw him off the building before he could free himself. Phoebe was never going to talk to me after this. Getting that close to aggron was suicide. It made him angry, and was flailing around like crazy to the point where the floor started to crack. I've never seen him so angry. The sniper fire stopped as the battle had turned into quite a spectacle, which would have been horific, if watching numerous screaming space policemen get launched over the edge of the building wasn't oddly amusing. Another one slammed into the car I was hiding behind, hard enough to knock himself out and put a huge dent in the side. I took the opportunity to relieve him of his weapon. but I didn't have any time to use it before the floor gave way and dumped aggron off the side of the building along with all but one of the remaining space policemen. Tbe sound of the resulting crash was undescribable. My shoulder still hurt like hell, but I was able to cover the one remaining space police officer with enough plasma to make sure she couldn't free herself. This bought me some time to look over the edge.
Aggron was on his back and hurt hurt bad, not helped by an suv rolling off one of the lower floors and smashing to pieces against his stomach. The building and even the fricking street was severely damaged.
" What the hell Cj? " Phoebe said as she teleported in behind me.
"I didn't mean to send him out. " I explained. "And where the hell have you been?"
"Who do you think was shooting at them this entire time. " She said.
"I got another bubble gun." I said, still in pain. "I need a potion."
I said as I attached the unconcious officer to the car he had slammed into.
"You didn't have to kill them." Phoebe scolded me.
"I told him not too, I told him to hold still, he didn't listen." I said.
"Well now they're going to come after us for murder too." Phoebe replied.
"Yeah, well. If they'd just stop comming after us we wouldn't have to resort to any of this." I pointed out.
"You said you didn't mean to." Phoebe replied.
"I didn't, but still." I said.
"What about this little lady? She's cute." She said as her eyes moved to the concious, still struggling police woman.
"You just want to add every charge possible don't you?" I asked.
"No, but we still need to get into the base to save our friends." Phoebe said. "She's the only one that's still conscious. I took care of the ones that made it to the ground."
"I'm not helping you you murderous *$&#*($." The officer exclaimed.
"Lady I just fucking said that entire situation was a complete accident, I didn't even mean to send him out in the first place, speaking of which." I went and returned aggron as it was obvious he was too injured to get back up. The crumpled suv that had come to rest on his belly procced ed to fall the rest of the way to the ground. " And if you and your band of fucking idiots didn't get so close to him, fuck, if you didn't come after us just cause we entered your world. Did you ever think about how the fuck we were supposed to know it was illegal to enter your world. It's not like every single world even knows the fucking portals exist, you know what fuck you, fuck your fuck police, fuck your world, fuck, just ugggghhn FUCK! Just ugggghhhhh."
"Cj calm down, stop cursing." Phoebe interupted after I got so angry I became frustrated at the fact that I couldn't even properly express it in words anymore.
"Aggron's down, my fucking shoulder hurts." I said.
"Ok well, no more helmet for you missy." She said as she removed the officer's helmet and placed her hands on her head.
"What are you doing? "The officer asked.
"If you're not going to give us the information, then we'll need to take it." Phoebe said.
"Do your worst!" The struggling officer challenged.
"Um, this doesn't actually hurt much." Phoebe said.
"Don't tell her that." I said.
"Do you have a potion?" I asked.
"They're back on the bus." Phoebe replied.
"God dammit." I said.
"Oh it'll be ok, you're not bleeding."
"Baby girl, it feels like my shoulder has 1000 fucking knives in it." I said, in a somewhat insane manner.
"Stop cursing, geez, you're such a big baby." She said.
"Oh yeah, that's completely fair." I said. "My arm isn't even attached to my shoulder anymore."
"You need to pop it back in." The trapped officer said. "Free me and I'll do it for you."
"No." Phoebe said.
"Pheebles, I can't even move my arm, just get her out of her armor, or whatever." I said.
"No." The officer refused.
"We can't have you teleporting away and alerting your friends." I said.
"And we need her to get into the base." Phoebe said.
"We do? " I asked.
"Mhm, she has the chip." Phoebe replied.
"You need to change the switch on the gun to remove the goo." The officer said.
"Fine." I said as I did so, and shot my own pretty much dead hand to remove to blob of goo that was stuck to it this entire time. My arm was basically dead, everytime I tried to move it, it just hurt more, and it basically just flopped around limply. Then I turned towards the officer, and shot the teleportation watch thing so I could remove it before freeing her, I threw it over the side of building, both to keep it away from her and for my own amusement.
"Ok thankyou." She said as she quickly grabbed my arm and painfully snapped it back into place.
"Ow."
"You ok now? " Phoebe asked.
"Atleast I can move it now." I said.
"It will be sore for awhile." The officer said. "Now if you'll excuse me." She kicked the gun out of my hand and ran away as fast as she could, but it was no use as Phoebe simply teleported in front of her and without her helmet, quickly knocked her unconcious.
"Never saw that comming." I said with heavy sarcasm as I retrieved the bubblegun.
"Poor cutie, has to fight for the wrong team." Phoebe said.
"Phoebe you realize she's probably around the same age as you?" I said.
"She's only 20." Phoebe corrected me.
"Really? " I asked.
"Mhm." Phoebe said.
"Jeez they hire young." I said.
"Let's take her with us." Phoebe said.
"Why?" I asked, knowing damned well why but not thinking Phoebe was crazy enough to do so.
" Not that reason weirdo, but maybe if we bring her with us we can learn more about the space police." Phoebe corrected my thinking.
"We need her to get into the base." I said.
"I know, but I can put her out for 8 hours and then we can take her to the bus once we're done there." Phoebe said.
"Eh, why not, they already got us for murder, I suppose abduction and kidnapping isn't that bad by comparison." I said.
"Nope, it's not." Phoebe insisted. "And it's not like they haven't abducted our friends."
"True." I replied as she placed her hands on the head of the officer that was already knocked out against the car, just to insure he would stay out for awhile.
"Is he still alive? I asked out of concern, despite everything I never wanted to kill them.
"He'll make it." Phoebe replied. "But now he won't wake up for awhile."
"They can heal themselves remember?" Phoebe asked. "But Aggron hit them so hard he knocked them out cold."
"So everyone will survive? " I asked.
"Mhm." Phoebe said. "But you know they'll get us for attempted murder anyway."
"Yep." I said as Phoebe and I gathered around the unconcious woman.
A little bit of teleportation later we were at the bottom floor. Where I showed Phoebe the strange place I thought the doorway would be while awkardly dragging the unconcious officer along.
"So this is the spot, see how there's a square formed by these humps in the asphault?
"Mhm." Phoebe nodded.
"So now we have to get sleeping beauty onto here, I guess." I said, still a bit unsure about exactly how to open the door.
"No, you need to slide her wrist over the reciever embedded in this concrete pillar." Phoebe said as she gestured toward said pillar.
"Ok" I said as I dragged the officer towards the pillar.
"Where's the reciever?" I asked.
"The pockmarks." Phoebe replied.
So I held the officer's wrist up the natural-looking pockmarks on the concrete pillar, this caused the entire rectangular space inside the asphault humps to lower by just an inch or two, followed by the accension of a square metal tube with two panels that opened up near the top to reveal a pair of buttons. This led us to a lower level of the parking building, full of various space police vehicles, including the delorean sedans, the buggies, and some more conventional looking sedans, suvs, vans, and even a few cargo trucks. Vehicles that were native to this world and time period that could blend in with traffic inconspicuously. At this point the alarm was already going off, so we had to be on the lookout for more space police men. Phoebe and I worked together to set the unconcious officer inside a large parked civilian suv, which we decided we were going to escape with later, and then we proceeded towards the exit.
Thanks to our pokemon this raid on the space police's facility went well, they were still vulnerable to Blossom's sleep powder, and combined with a petal dance from Bulby they dropped like flies. After sleep powder put them out, Phoebe went and made sure they would stay out for several hours. Eventually we made it to the holding cells, where we rescued Henry, Claire, and Jack's crew. As well as a bunch of people we didn't know, who, because they were arrested by the space police, we kind of doubted they were guilty of anything really. Aside from that, we basically just did it to drive them crazy.
"I was wondering if you were going to show up." Henry said.
"Yeah well, we didn't know if we should try to find some more help or. And then they ambushed us, then aggron threw several of them off a building, and Phoebe figured out how to get into the base.
"And that's not all, we have a prisoner!" Phoebe joyfully exclaimed.
"What?" Henry asked, confused.
"We decided to capture one of their officers, in an attempt to get some information." I explained. "It was Phoebe's idea, since they're going to blame us for attempted murder anyway."
"You mean you, they're going to blame you." Phoebe said.
"Like you weren't helping me?" I replied.
"You killed some of them?" Claire asked.
" They can't be killed very easily. "Phoebe replied. "Their armor is really advanced and can heal them somehow."
"They can also teleport." I said.
"They can, so they're magic like you?" She asked as she looked at Phoebe.
"I'm not magic I'm psychic, there's a difference." Phoebe replied. "And no, not like me, they can because of technology, not because of natural abilities."
"Hey, let's stop talking and get out of here before they get reinforcements." I said, wanting to get moving.
" Where are they going to get reinforcements? " Phoebe asked.
"I highly doubt this is the only space police base on this world." I replied.
"Yeah, I guess you're right Cj." Phoebe replied." Allright then let's go."
"We need to get back to our train. "Jack's driver interjected. "Ya think they left Jack alone?"
"Probably, they've never followed us through the portals before." I replied.
"We'll get back to the train soon enough, we just have some more stuff to deal with first." Phoebe said.
We backtracked through the facility and entered our newly-aquired suv, we took the elevator back up to the parking building and pulled away. A few of the prisoners we had freed stole their own vehicles and followed us out as well.
"You remember where to go Pheebles? " I asked.
"Um, I think it's a left up here." She said.
"Yeah that seems about right." I replied, vaguely remembering the route we took when we were following the van earlier. Surprisingly we made it back without a problem, I don't know whether it was because their reinforcements were too far away or because they were too busy chasing any of the other prisoners we set free, but getting back to Jack and the rest of the train was a piece of cake. Once the crew had Jack ready to go, we abandoned the suv in the nexus, and got back to the mainline as quickly as possible, taking our prisoner with us, who rode with Phoebe and I in our bus. We had her handcuffed to the table, with handcuffs we stole from the space police. We didn't even have the keys for them, only way to open them was with Phoebe's powers. In addition to our prisoner, Henry and I each stole a bubblegun, and Phoebe and I also got our hands on one of the teleportation watch things. It was the only one we could find that wasn't broken, as the space police didn't wear them inside the base and their armory utilized electronic locks that were impossible for Phoebe to bypass.
Once we were well on our way, Phoebe decided to wake her up a bit early, since waiting about 6 or seven hours now was a bit much.
"Why does my head hurt? " Were the first words out of her mouth before reality set in.
"Where am I?" She said as she looked down and noticed she was cuffed to the table.
"This is kidnapping you know." She said. "Let me go!"
"The space police do not negotiate with kidnappers." She said.
"We didn't do this for money." I replied once the novelty of her confusion wore off. "We did this for answers."
"You tried to kill my men, I'm not telling you anything." She replied.
"Now where am I?" She asked.
"We ask the questions, you answer them. "I said.
"Yeah, we don't want to mess up that pretty little face." Phoebe added.
"Geez Pheebles, ease up." I said.
"Look, we brought you along because you and your little space police force have been a giant pain in the ass." I replied.
"That's the entire point scumbag." The officer said. "You're evil."
"No we're not." I defended.
"Yes you are. "She insisted.
"No we're not. You're the ones arresting people for no reason. " I said.
"Tresspassing!" She insisted.
"Normally when that happens there's a sign, that says something like, I don't know, DO NOT TRESSPASS!" I said.
"Traveling to any world under control of the space police without authorization is grounds for tresspassing." She insisted.
"Well how the hell are we supposed to know which worlds are under control of the space police?" I asked.
"Well you should find out before you open a portal to them." She insisted.
"We don't even open these portals, they already exist." I said.
"Well then you're using them without authorization." She insisted.
"Yeah it's always something isn't, anything to arrest people." I said.
"Criminals." She insisted.
"We are not criminals." I said.
"Then why am I chained to a table?" She asked.
"Because you're under arrest as part of a investigation into a potential enemy of pokemon and of the public by agents of the Devon Corporation." Phoebe interjected with a brilliant and surprisingly pretty true answer.
"Yeah, that." I agreed.
"What is the Devon Corporation?" She boastfully asked." You two don't look like agents of anything, except for crime maybe."
"I have our ids right here. " Phoebe said as she dug them out of her purse. "See?" She said as she held them up to her face.
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't know I was speaking to the officers of a mono-planetary law enforcement agency." The officer replied in a mocking tone.
"Atleast we don't arrest people just for being travelers." I said."We actually go after criminals."
"Where's your supervisor then? Would he approve of kidnapping a fellow officer?" Our captive asked.
"Actually, we're kind of lost,we need to get to the other side of the multiverse." Phoebe replied. "And you're not a fellow officer, you're a member of a hostile organization. No better than a member of Team Rocket. Don't kid yourself."
Are we on a train?" The enemy officer asked when she realized we were moving.
"Yep, this is the nexus, it's a weird magical railway travels between many worlds." Phoebe replied.
"Where are we going?" The officer asked.
"We don't know, we're just trying to get to the other side of the multiverse. "I said.
"The multiverse isn't a toy you know? You're in violation of at least 5 regulations right now."
"As far as I know the space police have no jurisdiction in the nexus." I said.
"Yeah well it will be, one day." The officer insisted.
"Bull crap." I replied before letting out a sigh. "Pheebles why did we do this?"
"Because I thought she might know something useful." Phoebe answered.
"Can't you read minds? " I questioned.
"It takes awhile." She defended. "How many times do I have to explain that. It's easy to see what she's thinking right now, but there's so many memories and you don't remember everything at any given moment."
"You did this so we could share her didn't you? " I thought to myself hoping she would pick up.
"maybe." She mischeviously replied telepathically.
If I wasn't so distracted by the battle earlier, I might have noticed sooner.
"Stay here, we need to talk to ourselves." Phoebe said to the officer as we exchanged awkward glances.
"Where am I supposed to go? I'm chained to a table." The officer pointed out.
So, on the flatcar, outside the bus we talked while te train slowly proceeded down the line.
"You said no more threesomes Pheebles, and now you go and pull this crap." I said.
"Oh come on Cj, don't be like that." She replied. "We've been on this train for awhile now, I just want to have some fun."
Me: "I'll think about it. " I said.
"But why don't we talk to Henry and Claire first, see what the space police did to them when we weren't around?" I said.
We hadn't really talked about what happened with them at all, though we've mentioned the space police around Henry before.
"You think she'll be fine in there? " Phoebe asked.
"She should be, you're the only one that can unlock those cuffs remember? No matter where she looks, she'll never find the keys we don't have." I said.
"True." Phoebe replied.
I looked into her eyes for a moment.
"Baby girl, I love you, but you're getting out of control, you know that right? You promised that last time was the last time. But here we go with you instigating another setup for another time." I said.
"I know Cj, I'm sorry, but this train is just getting so boring." She said.
"Yeah, I know." I replied. "But does that really allow you to go back on your promises?"
"That and, you know, you'd have to get her to agree too." I said. "What if she's not into it, then what are you going to do?"
"Well then, if she won't fall for me, then you'll have to win her over." She said, matter of factly like it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Yeah, because we all know I have a natural talent for that." I said, sarcastically.
"Oh, don't worry about it, I'll help you." She replied.
"Pheebles, we're not doing this, end of discussion, she's one of the enemy." I refused.
"Oh come on Cj, don't be like that. She'll change, especially if we do this." She said.
"I think you have the entire thing of how that works backwards, but whatever." I said.
"It'll be fun." She insisted.
"Is that like your go-to excuse now? " I asked.
"No." She denied.
"Come on, let's just go to the coach." I said.
"Fine." She said as she took my hand.
"Just promise me you'll think about it." She cutely asked, trying to win me over with her charm. That usually worked, but not today.
"No, you owe me atleast three promises now." I said.
"Cj . . . " She whimpered.
"To the coach, baby girl." I commanded as I grew a bit impatient.
" mmmmm . " She wimpered before we teleported moments later.
Henry and Claire were just hanging out in the coach when we entered.
"You guys here? " I asked as I stood on the end of an empty corridor.
"Where else would we be? " Henry asked as he popped out from one of the rooms. "What does the prisoner know?"
"Haven't really found out much yet. She's being really defiant." I said.
"Is that surprising? " He asked with some sarcasm.
"No, not really." I replied.
"What are you going to do with her anyway?" Henry asked.
"I'll guess we'll just drop her off on the next space police world we find." I replied. "We can't just let her off on any world with her skin like that, but what I'm hoping for, is that, since she is with the space police, we might be able to pull a few tricks and, maybe they won't be as much trouble next time we run into them."
"But now she thinks we're all bad guys." Phoebe interjected.
"Yep, just gotta give it time Pheebles." I agreed. Thinking it strange for her to say such things since she said she wanted to share her with me earlier. Then again, she obviously didn't want Henry and Claire to know her real intentions.
"So what'd you see in the base?" I asked.
"Not much, they asked us a bunch of questions about you and then they put us all into a cell." Henry replied. "They were going to send us to prison for tresspassing."
"Yeah, that's their thing." I said. "There was one world we went to quite awhile back where they actually gave us a house in this neighborhood with all these other aliens from various places. It was like some kind of automated system. And we were just expected to get jobs and continue living there like normal citizens"
"Really? "He asked.
"Yes, but we couldn't stay there because our children weren't with us." Phoebe answered.
"And this is also where we found the resistance, I don't know how widespread they are, but they're fighting to reclaim worlds from the space police." I added.
"It might not have been so bad if our children were with us." Phoebe said.
"Pheebles, we already had a record with them at that point, it wouldn't have lasted, they would've figured out who we were eventually." I corrected.
"Besides, who knows what kinds of silly laws and regulations they had there, if there was enough corruption to inspire a resistance there must have been something more wrong than the just the tresspassing laws."
"True. "Phoebe agreed.
"Have you considered how advanced their society must be to have those laws though?" Phoebe said, "They must understand portal technology a lot more than we do."
"That and the bubbleguns and teleportation watches." I added.
"That's some more questions we can ask her." I said.
"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.
"But they don't chase us through the portals?" Henry asked.
"Not usually, but they use portals, they have fancy portals, they have portals that you can change the location on. Unlike most of these portals that only ever go to one place. With their machines you can see where the portal leads ahead of time. The portal machines at Devon Co. can't even do that, and they're prone to changing without warning, which is how we started this entire adventure in the first place. Secondly they probably don't chase us because we could lead them straight into an ambush. " I said. "Plus it's technically beyond their jurisdiction."
"Where's Claire?" Phoebe asked.
"She's lying down for a bit." Henry replied. " I think those police wannabes shook her up a bit. "
"Is she ok? " Phoebe asked out of concern.
"I think she'll be fine, she just needs some rest." Henry said.
"Did they try to torture you?" I asked.
"No, they just asked a bunch of questions." Henry said. "Then they said they were going to send us to prison."
"Strange." I replied.
"It was still terrifying." Groaned a tired Claire as she laid across one of the seats with a blanket she had aquired at some point. "I don't want to go to jail again."
"Well they got the drop on us this time." I said.
"Yeah, it probably won't happen, besides we have one of them working for us now." Phoebe said.
"No we don't Pheebles, she still hates us." I said.
"Well, she won't in a little while." Phoebe insisted. "Now we should get back to her before she finds a way to escape."
"Ok." Henry said.
"Pheebles there's no key to the handcuffs, the teleporting watch thing is burried in your purse somewhere and she's chained to the table, there's no way she can escape." I said, knowing full well that she wanted to get back for other reasons.
"But she's crafty Cj." Phoebe insisted.
"She'll be fine." I replied. "We have plenty of time."
"To do what? "Henry asked.
"We just wanted to make sure you were ok." Phoebe said. "After being arrested and all."
"Well we're fine, so now what?" Henry asked.
"You wanna play cards? " I said as I pulled a deck of playing cardss out of my pocket to the horror of my beloved.
"Oh Cj, card games are so boring." She said, further pushing the notion that she wanted to go back to the bus.
"Well we don't exactly have an xbox on here Pheebles." I replied. "Come on, we can play a few hands."
"Of what?" Henry asked.
" I don't know , poker? Go fish?" I suggested.
"Claire needs to rest Cj. We should come back later." Phoebe suggested. "Then we can all play."
"You just really want to go back to the bus don't you?" I asked my beloved.
"I have a lot of stuff I need to do." She said.
"Oh really? " I asked.
Next thing I knew she took my hand and teleported us down the aisle, just leaving Henry alone and confused.
"Pheebles what are you . . . " She kissed me before I could finish my protest.
"Don't you dare let them know what I'm trying to do." She said as soon as her lips left mine. "This is between you and me."
"No honey, this is all you, I had nothing to do with this." I replied.
"You mean you're not with me on this?" She asked.
"Pheebles you need to give it more time. There is absolutely no way she would agree to anything like that right now, and she's one of the enemy. Just relax baby girl. Stop acting like you need this to happen now because you don't, you're just being silly." I said.
"Stop acting like this won't work right now for no reason because it will."She insisted.
"No reason? How about I don't feel like it right now? Is that enough of a reason princess?" I replied.
"Yeah I guess it is. Except you probably would be if we were both naked." She replied.
"Just give it up baby girl." I said.
"But we have to or we can't do it at all tonight." She said.
"Not true, you could just knock her out, then we could do it and she'd have no idea."
"Yeah, I guess." She said.
"But I don't want to do it tonight." I said.
"Why not?" She asked.
"Because if we're going to have another damned threesome, I'm going to need all the energy I can get. And most importantly, I want you to show me you still have some sense of self control." I replied.
"I tell you what Pheebles, if you can go four days, without sex, I'm in." I replied.
"You can't be serious? You really want to give up all this for 4 days?" She cutely gestured.
"3 days." I said, realizing she had a point.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.
"So here's how it is, we both abstain for three days, and that will give us time to win her over, so she can be our reward."
"What if it's not enough time? "Phoebe asked.
"Then we'll just make a point to be able to be with her eventually." I said.
"But after three days can we be together again?" She asked.
"I guess so." I replied before giving her a kiss.
"I'm doing this for your own good you know?"
"I know."
"We can still snuggle though right?"
"Yeah, we can do everything but sex." I said.
"So you can rub my . . ." She began to say before I cut her off.
"That might be pushing it a bit." I interupted.
"But it's not sex." She defended.
"Just let it go Pheebles." I replied.
"Come on, let's play some cards and get back to Henry and Claire before they figure out we never left the coach and begin trying to listen in on us." I said.
"Oh, that would be awful." She replied.
"Yes it would." I agreed as we hugged once again.
"Three days baby girl." I said as I gazed into her eyes.
"Mhm." She replied. "Just don't forget that means you too."
"I know." I said as I let her go. "Why would that be a problem?" I asked.
"I don't know. "She replied. "Come on then, let's play cards."
"Allright." I agreed.
After that we went back over to talk to Henry who retreated out of the aisle and back into the compartment, apparently assuming we weren't going to come back.
We played cards with our friends for a few hours until the crew decided to stop the train for the night, or what felt like it should have been night atleast. At that point we setup a campfire wiht some leftover wood from the last one, and had some food from our reserves. The crew did not want to explore another world at this point, and after what happened in the last one, I honestly couldn't blame them. Then like many previous nights, we retreated to the bus, where Phoebe put our captive to bed before we went to bed ourselves.
An uneventful night eventually led to the next morning. We started the day by getting our captive some water, and then before long we were heading down the mainline of the nexus once again.
"Do you think the nexus stretches all the way to the other side of existence?" Phoebe asked as we sat on our bed in the back of the bus. As the train began to pick up speed and our captive was still asleep.
"I don't know how it works Pheebles, but we could hope." I replied.
"I really want to get off this train." She said.
"I know you do baby girl." I replied.
"But I'm not sure that's the best choice." I said. "We might be covering more ground this way."
It was impossible to tell whether the many portals along the nexus were in some sort of sequence or in some completely random order. Two worlds didn't really have to be similiar in order to be close to each other on the great plain of all existence. In addition, we were basically just trying to cover as much ground as possible in search of the the end, so we weren't even exploring every world, just the one that we happened to be at when Jack and crew were too tired to continue for the day, if any, because they didn't even want to leave the nexus the night before. It was a pretty typical day where we came across about 3 trains heading the opposite direction, none of which were interesting enough to be worth describing. Depending on the amount of other trains we came across, we could travel a maximum of about 300 miles a day.
"Should I wake her up now?" Phoebe asked.
"Eh, go ahead I guess."
So Phoebe got up and went over to our captive to wake her up.
"Mmmm." She moaned as her eyes cracked open.
"We brought you some water, if you're thirsty." Phoebe kindly said as she set the canteen in front of her.
"I'm not thirsty, but thankyou anyway." She replied. "My head hurts."
"Yeah that's normal." Phoebe said. "It should wear off in a bit."
"What are you doing to me?" She asked.
"Nothing, she just put you to sleep and woke you up, that's it. I made sure of it." I replied with a slight and possibly unjustified sense of moral superiority. The headaches are just a side effect from being forced awake." I said.
"We're not here to hurt you, we're here for information. So if you need anything just ask." Phoebe said.
"Like what do you want to know?" She said in a surprisingly cooperative tone.
"How did you become an officer of the space police?" I asked.
"I don't want to talk about it." She replied.
"Really?" I asked. "You liked your job right?"
"Yes, but, recruitment is top secret, I can't tell you how it works." She insisted.
"How about what is your name?" Phoebe asked.
"F.E.O.S.P.D 87654-C6-3-00986, Lt. Zarina Linerman"
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"Female enforcement officer of the space police of dimension 87654- Sector 6 District 3, internal ID 986, Street name Zarina Linerman." She explained.
"So it's Zarina then?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, basically." She said. " Unless I'm being refered to by higher- ups outside my native dimension, then they just use the numbers and every female officer instated in my class is named Zarina, the most common name for the year, and the last names are randomly selected from a list of really popular ones for the given dimension."
"Like Smith? "I asked.
"No like Linerman, or Horrison, or Metalverker." She replied.
"So what's your real name? " Phoebe asked.
"I told you, it's Zarina Linerman."
"What name did you have before that though? "I asked, clarifying Phoebe's question for her.
"It's always been my name." She replied.
"From my birth, I was a ward of the space police." She said.
"You've got to be kidding me, they raise you all from children?" I asked.
"Mhm. "She said. "Most space police officers are."
"So you have no parents? " Phoebe asked.
"What are parents? I don't understand."
"You don't have a mother or father? " I asked as Phoebe and I exchanged looks of confusion.
" I don't understand the question." Zarina replied.
"Who took care of you as a child? "I asked.
"The teachers and the doctors." She replied.
"So you've been raised in a space police facility your entire life?" Phoebe asked.
"Space Police Multiversal Academy Delta 4322. I was raised there until I was 18 and then I was sent back to my native dimension, then I worked under the supervision of a veteran officer until the time came for me to replace them. Then I was promoted to district lieutenant." Zarina thoroughly explained.
"A position I would like to keep." She said with determination.
"Well maybe if you're gone long enough they'll think you're dead and promote you again posthumously." I suggested.
"You'll never make it back to your own dimension sweety, we're just too far away now." Phoebe replied.
"Don't be so sure, all I need to do is find another space police world and they can send me back." Zarina insisted.
"Yep, and you can keep living in your closed off little world where they never let you explore beyond the confines of your own universe, or you can stay with us and see everything. "Phoebe suggested.
"You can basically be a glorified slave of the space police, or a free explorer of the multiverse." I said.
"I'm not a slave." Zarina protested.
"They don't even give you a unique name, just a generic one and a number like a prison." I argued back.
"So? We're still allowed to have lives outside of work, it's just work comes first." She defended.
"Do you know anybody outside of work?" Phoebe asked.
"Just a bartender and some neighbors." Zarina replied. "I don't have a lot of free time."
"So nobody is really going to miss you?" Phoebe asked. "Sounds lke quite a life."
"My fellow officers, most of us were from the same class, except for the chief. They won't take my abduction lightly." She replied.
"Yeah well if they aren't going to follow us into the nexus, it doesn't matter how badly they take it they're not going to get you back." I replied.
"What are you going to do with me?" She asked.
"We're going to torment you horribly until you agree to work for us. "Phoebe said.
"And sacrifice my career?" She said.
"Yes." Phoebe insisted.
"You might as well just let me go, I'll never turn my back on my comrades or the space police." She said.
"You sure?" Phoebe asked.
"Yes, why would I? I just met you, and you kidnapped me and chained me to this shoddy table." Zarina replied.
"Hey." I said.
"Well we don't want you to escape." Phoebe replied. "You could get lost out there and nobody will ever find you. You see, we've been traveling through the nexus for awhile now."
"We're just trying to get back home." Phoebe said.
"There's some place you can go and the space police will give you a home." Zarina said. "But it might be to late for that now."
"We don't want a new place, we want to go home." I said. "Back to our children."
"You have children? " She asked. "What's that like?"
"It's like the most terrifying yet beautiful thing in the entire world." I replied.
"Awe Cj, that's so beautiful." Phoebe said as huggled me.
"Officers of the space police aren't allowed to have kids, it conflicts too much with work." Zarina commented.
"Ok. So what would happen if you got pregnant?" Phoebe awkwardly decided to ask.
"Pheebles." I scolded.
"They'd force me to abort it, strip me of my rank, and send me to prison for being a waste of their resources." She replied.
"That's a little excessive." I replied.
"The academy costs money to operate." Zarina replied.
"Hey Cj, wouldn't she still have real parents somewhere?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't know Pheebles, she might be a clone, it doesn't really matter if she never knew them anyway." I replied.
"If you don't mind Zari, I'd like to take a look through your memories." Phoebe said. "Just out of curiousity."
"Curiosity can be dangerous Pheebles." I said, somewhat afraid she would she something she really shouldn't.
"You already have me chained to a table, what could go wrong?" She replied.
"Ok well get comfortable cause it will just be easier to do this while you're unconcious." Phoebe said.
"Just don't give me another headache." She replied.
"I'll try." Phoebe said as she gently put her to sleep.
"Ok this might take awhile." Phoebe said once Zarina was unconcious.
"What are you trying to find out baby girl?" I asked.
"I just want to see if she has parents, and how much she's telling us is actually true, but to do this I have to access memories that are so burried she might not even be aware of them."Phoebe said.
"But some careful hypnosis will help to bring them back."
"You're not doing this just as an excuse to hypnotize her so we can sleep with her are you?" I asked. "Cause one, that's rape, so no, and two, it hasn't been three days yet."
"Cj, relax, I would never do that." Phoebe said with some sincerity.
A few quiet minutes passed as my baby girl's glowing hands went to work, until she eventually found what she was looking for.
"She has parents." Phoebe said with a sudden look of concern on her face.
"Ok, and? You look like you've seen something a lot more horrible than that. " I said.
"Well, I found out how the space police gets it's recruits. They kidnap children." She replied.
"Really? " I asked.
"I don't know if they get all their recruits like that, but that's how they recruited her. When she was just a toddler she was taken to a store and then her mother left her unattended, but her memory of it is so faint she probably won't be able to recall it at all when she's awake. Also, after she was abducted she was carefully manipulated to the point where she thinks she was born in the academy. It kind of hurts to see." She said.
"You gonna be ok?." I asked out of concern.
"I'll be fine Cj, I just need a moment." She said as she hugged me.
The train came to a stop a few minutes later, we thought it was because we had met another venturing train, but instead it appeared that a locomotive had been abandoned on the main line. The locomotive was a british 2-6-0 design, but unlike Jack, it was not sentient. It was also in a poor state with some rust issues. A broken siderod, which was dangling off one wheel and partially burried in the roadbed, gave a clear reason for it's abandonment. Because things don't age in the nexus, it must have arrived here in a poor state to begin with and broke down due to pre-existing wear. Thankfully, it was compatible with our train, so all we needed to so was detach the side rod completely and gently push it out of the way. The crew felt sorry for the decrepit locomotive and after about an hour of fiddling around with one of the portal junctions it eventually found its way onto the back of our train along with it's tender. Everyone protested this but me and the crew, as I felt that if nothing else, maybe it would throw off the bubblemen, and it didn't really slow us down too much. The crew was hoping they'd find a world where they could drop it off and someone else could save it or maybe they thought they could bring it back to Sodor with them when our expedition was done, it wasn't clear what they were planning to do with it, hence the protest.
From what I understood, we were traveling until we reached the end of the nexus or until our fuel supply was halfway empty with nowhere to stock up. At that point, the rest of us would probably leave the train along with our vehicles. If we didn't find another reason to leave before that.
At some point in what was likely the afternoon we unchained Zarina from the table. Once we felt we could trust her to not try to escape. And we passed time by playing cards, and talking about our past adventures.
"Those Team Rocket guys sound terrible. " She commented as we described just a handful of their villainous exploits.
"Well, as long as their was money involved, there was nothing they wouldn't do, murder, theft, blackmail, poaching, sex trafficking, you name it. And this aggresive pursuit of cash led them to establish a powerful private army basically. They had so many advantages over the police that the Devon Agent program was created purely to combat them and other similiar organizations, while the police dealt with the cleanup, intel, and more typical small time criminals."
"And in some worlds it's flipped around where Devon is evil and Team Rocket is actually the good guys." Phoebe added.
"And what about the military?" Zarina asked.
"Each region's military is actually pretty small and are basically employed for diplomatic purposes only. They're barely anything more than what's required to defend their own installations and regions from attacks from Team Rocket-like organizations and other militaries. Most inter-regional disputes are settled by the elite four through pokemon battles." I replied.
"The Elite Four?" Zarina asked.
"They're the four best pokemon trainers in a particular region, as well as the heads of the pokemon league, to become one, you have to beat 8 gym leaders in the region, then you get into the pokemon league tournament, which is held on an annual basis, then if you win that, every four years, there's a champion's tournament, where only winners of the previous tournament can participate, then only the winner of that tournament recieves the right to challenge the elite four, if you manage to beat atleast one of them, you can become one, if you beat them all, you can become their leader, but you only get one chance per victory. If you refuse then the runner up gets the chance to challenge them and so on, but that's like one of the best jobs you can get, so it's not turned down very often. It's like a weird combination of a pro-athlete and military general. Now, all that said, Pheebles here is a league champion." I explained.
"Cj, that was a long time ago. That was before we even concieved Charley." Phoebe said.
"Didn't need to hear that." Zarina said in disgust.
"So? You can still participate in the champion's tournament baby girl." I said, trying to forget she said that.
"And where does the giant steel dinosaur thing fall in? " Zarina asked.
"That's aggron, he's a pokemon." I explained. "There's lots of different ones, not all of them are that destructive. Phoebe is one, technically."
"I'm a gardevoir." Phoebe explained.
"How many do you have? " She asked.
"6 on me right now, I have a few more at home, and then Phoebe has her own too, league rules state you can only have 6 on you at any time, though unofficially you can have as many as you can carry. You just can't challenge any gyms or enter any tournaments."
"Mr. Cinders, cubey, draco, cloudella, rapidash, bulby, mouser, and nidoqueen, 8." Phoebe said.
"I still can't believe you brought that evil rat with you." I said.
"Well I brought everyone else, I might a well bring him." She defiantly replied.
"Anyway why don't you let Mr Cinders out so she can see a pokemon up close?" I asked.
"Ok." Phoebe replied.
A few moments later she let Mr. Cinders out on the table.
"We just got this little guy, so he's not very strong yet." Phoebe said.
"He's kind of cute." Zarina commented.
"Yep, he's just a baby." Phoebe agreed.
"Quil!" The little pokemon chirped.
Somehow that conversation lasted us through the rest of the day.
When it came time to set up camp for the night, we brought her out of the bus and introduced her to Henry, Clair, Jack, and the crew. The sentient locomotive surprised her, up to this point she thought we were on a normal train. So while we gathered around the fire that night she explained a lot of things to our friends that she had already shared with us so it wasn't really worth repeating.
Anyway, when we returned to the bus for the night, Phoebe put her to sleep once again, just as a precaution, and then we went to bed ourselves.