Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Shoes (At Last!) ( Chapter 7 )

She sat at her desk, carefully making notes in her neat, loopy handwriting, chewing the end of a fluffy pen thoughtfully, occasionally glancing up to see her Ninetales, Pyra, asleep in her basket in the corner of her office, and going back to her work.

Her office was small but not cramped, organised but not necessarily tidy, and bright but not pleasant. She spent most of her life in this office; she should really add a plant or something. Just something small to make it seem… homier, as it was her home away from home after all.

Just then, the door flew open, slamming against the wall opposite and bounding back. The Ninetales awoke with a whine and pulled herself back into the corner, and she looked up, emerald green eyes wide and flickering.

“In… Incendia!” the man cried, hands on knees and almost bent double from panting. He looked up again and she placed her fluffy pen on top of the document she was writing on and clasped her hands together with a slight twitch of the head as if to say `please, go on.' “There's been a…” He stood up tall and straightened his glasses.

It was obvious now, if you were one who paid attention to stereotypes, that this man was a scientist. Messy hair; wild eyes; long white coat and glasses so thick they made his eyes look like huge brown orbs hanging in front of his face.

“What?” she snapped, shaking her head so that her platinum blonde hair rippled around her shoulders. If Incendia wasn't so terrifying, she would have many adoring male fans. As it was, however… “Speak!”

“Um, the… the project… er…” He loosened the collar around his neck slightly.

“What is it?” she asked, anger burning in her eyes already.

“Morbidark!” he wailed. “The tracking device that we've been… we've been monitoring… has…”

“Oh, don't you dare tell me…” she hissed through her teeth.

“There was an anomaly in the atmosphere, caused by something breaking through space itself. It resembled what we were looking out for on our hunt for Celebi, only much, much stronger. Then, we lost all contact with the target.” He blinked owlishly. “Ma'am,” he added, to be safe.

“Urgh!” she cried, throwing her head up to stare at the ceiling. “You are all morons. All of you!” She shook her head again, and raised her eyebrows, picking the pen up again. The badge that granted her authority glinted as she shifted, the silver curly `U' shining brightly for a moment. The scientist gulped, thinking of all she could do to him, and it wasn't his fault!

“There was nothing we could have…” he stammered.

“Just find it. I don't know what you're trying to imply, but Morbidark cannot teleport or travel through time, so just FIND HIM. Don't blame your mistakes on the tracking device either, because it was the best money could buy!” She growled again and began to sign her name even more furiously than before. The man was practically grovelling now.

“P-please… please don't…” He cleared his throat desperately and began to explain. “We believe that the rift was caused by some sort of… interference from something we couldn't have anticipated, and the target wandered into it.”

“I really don't understand what you're saying, and some of us actually do our jobs around here, so if you'll excuse me…”

“Somebody tampered with the gaps between alternate dimensions, or universes, and created a tear. Morbidark went through it accidentally. That's the furthest we've come in trying to figure it out.” He said, eying the Ninetales nervously. She was over the shock of him bursting in and was now growling throatily at him.

“Whatever your excuse is,” Incendia said calmly. “Find the creature like you were supposed to.”

“We can't do that without opening the portal.”

She looked up at him, seething now, at his insolence. Why hadn't he left yet? He kept talking and talking, and she had made herself perfectly clear.

“Well open the… portal…” she waved her hands.

“We need… we need your permission to send some grunts on a mission, then.”

“Granted. Go.”

“B-but don't you want to know what you're authorising?”

“Whatever it is, you're really starting to annoy me, and I'd like you to leave before Pyra burns you alive and I have to be the one to drag your carcass down to the bins outside.” She looked up, pleasant enough. “You have ten seconds before I give the command.”

“Um, well, I, er…” He took a deep breath. “We have reason to believe that one or two people - explorers, probably - entered the portal around the time Morbidark left. They have on them a device that we believe could be used to make contact with their own dimension, and therefore open up the portal from the other end.”

“Right,” Incendia said, raising an eyebrow. “So you want me to let you have some grunts to go chase after these inter-dimensional explorers so you can steal their communications device and take back the creature?”

“Y-yes. I'm sure you know that…” He wasn't sure if it was his place to say this. “The Boss will reward us both greatly for this.”

Incendia looked up a little, and then nodded. “You'd better be right about this, you know.” She chewed on her lip. “Now go. You've exceeded your time limit, but I'm feeling nice.”

He didn't need to be told twice. Turning on his heel, he shut the door behind him and his long lab coat whisked behind him, the word `Umbra' rippling in curly silver letters.

“God, I love shoes.”

“Really? I always thought you were more of a…” Matthew began, but then seemed to think better of it. Kitty looked at him for a moment, and then narrowed her eyes. “No, I got nothing.”

“Sooo glad we found that shoe shop. I think my feet were starting to bleed,' she carried on, inspecting her new trainers carefully. She never was much of a stylish shoe person, nor was she a latest-trainer person. If they were comfy, it was great, if they were pretty: added bonus.

Kitty wasn't very good at being a girl.

“Charlie?” Adam nudged him.

“Wha…?” Charlie snapped out of his daydream and grinned. “Where do you think we can find a Rod?”

They were sitting in the back of the local café of Brevis Village, which was located right by the sea, as many things in Aerei were. It was an island, after all. The water glimmered in the light of the afternoon and they were feeling very comforted by it all. Especially Matthew and Kitty who were enjoying the luxury of shoes for the first time in a day or so.

“Well don't random fishermen give them to you if you answer their questions right?” Scott asked, poking at the ice in his glass with a novelty straw featuring a Psyduck in a grass skirt.

“Yeah!” Matthew cried. He peered at the sea and then hopped over the fence. A young girl was sitting on a collapsible chair with her rod in the water a few feet away. Matt approached her and grinned. She looked up at him and he grinned encouragingly.

“This can only end in tears,” Kitty sighed.

“Can I help you?” she asked nervously.

“I FUCKING LOVE FISHING!” Matthew roared, giving her the thumbs up. She blinked once or twice, reached into her pocket and he held his hands out expectantly. She retrieved a little bottle and sprayed it into his eyes before getting up and running away. Matthew yelled out and clamped his hands over his eyes, falling to his knees.

Kitty snorted loudly, causing most of the drink she had just taken to spray out all over the table. They all collapsed laughing for a bit and then climbed over the fence to join their friend who was now writhing on the floor and making strangled cat noises.

Kitty stepped carefully over him and bent over to pick up the rod she had left behind, inspecting it carefully.

“That's one way to do it, I guess,” she said. “Nice work, Matt.”

“Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch,” he moaned, rolling around.

Kitty made herself comfortable on the girl's chair and started to fish.

After ten minutes of sitting, she was getting bored.

“Fishing sucks, and I don't even want a water pokemon,” she said finally. “Unless we're gonna eat it.” She thought about it. “But I somehow think that wouldn't feel quite right.”

“I'll take over,” Charlie offered, taking the rod from her hand. She gave it up gladly and went over to Scott.

“What now?” she asked.

“The view,” he said quietly. “Is perfect.”

Kitty followed his line of sight and saw the glistening sea, shaking trees, and the occasional flick of a Wailord tail in the horizon. Who knew that having your dream come true could feel so… awesome?

Well, everyone knew that.

But if your dream was as ridiculous as theirs, you'd never expect it to, would you?

“We need to hurry,” Kitty said to him. He looked down at her and nodded after a while, chewing his lip.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “We need to hurry.”

“So what shall we do today? Travel?”

“The… the first gym is in this village,” Scott said, rubbing his arm. “We need our pokemon to be strong enough to take down five legendaries.”

“Yep,” Kitty agreed quickly. “Yes we do.”

They watched as Charlie let out his two pokemon, the Totodile and the Marill, and they watched as the Totodile chased it around for a bit, enjoying the Water Guns that were fired its way every so often, and making little `toto' sounds that sounded strangely like wolf whistles.

“Scott?”

“Mm?”

“I don't want to leave.”

“Well we're not gonna be able to leave for a while, so…”

“No, I mean…” She took a deep breath. “Ever.”

“You don't ever want to leave?”

“No.”

Scott looked at Kitty for a while, and then put his arm around her. “Then I'll stay with you. But for now, we have a job to do.”

“Right.”

“Ok.”

And he span her towards him and kissed her.