Part 6 The Team Assembles Reasonably Well

Before I could actually earn everyone's attention, I was interrupted. Celebi had neglected to inform me that she was not done teleporting everyone in, and I was surprised when yet another portal opened up, this time dropping out two Pokemon off to the side of the group, almost landing right on someone's head. I looked over at Taylor for a second, and silently agreed on what to do. I walked over to where they had fallen, and was ready to introduce myself when things got weird.

"No. NononononononoNONONONONONO!" This came from one of the Pokemon, which was bright blue, and had an interesting appearance, resembling a mermaid dog. Its head was buried in its paws, and it continued rambling. "We cannot be doing this again. This is unbelievable. Once was more than enough. ONCE WAS ENOUGH!!"

I knelt down next to him. "Hey, buddy, let's just calm down."

He looked up at me, and with a dead serious look in his deep black eyes, told me, "Man, now is not the damn time."

I kind of recoiled a little, and decided it might be best to let him figure it out. At about this point, the other Pokemon sat up, and looked around, confused. It was like a bunny with brown fur, and small puffs of cream fur sprouting on the ends of its ears, and covering its lower body. It looked down and noticed its own appearance, and seemed startled. "Am...am I...a Pokemon?"

Meanwhile, the blue guy was now curled into a fetal position, murmuring, "I'm gonna kill every last legendary Pokemon in existence. I'm gonna kill 'em. I'm gonna kill 'em..."

I looked over at the brown Pokemon. "Do you know him?"

She glanced over at him. "I don't think so. Unless..." She tapped him lightly on the back with a paw. "Jack?"

He slowly turned over, a paw being anxiously chewed in his mouth.

I shook my head. "He's...he's not doing too well." I approached him again. "Listen. I know you're freaked out, but trust me, this'll all-"

"No." He interrupted me, glaring at me with all the anger a rather adorable Pokemon such as himself could muster. "You listen. I already did this whole 'being a Pokemon' bulls***. I don't know if maybe I was supposed to learn some lesson from it, but I like to think I did. I don't believe I deserve to go through this again. Do you know what it's like, man? Getting transformed into something that's not yourself?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Twice."

This seemed to startle him. He turned his head aside as if he were thinking, then lifted it to look at me again. "Whatever. I don't know what you want me to do, but you can be damn sure about one thing: I'm here to get back to normal and get out of this hell. I want no part of this, and you can bet your ass I'm not gonna be some kinda hero if any of you need one."

I drummed my fingers silently a few times. "Alright." He nodded in reply, and turned around.

I stood up and let out a sigh. Taylor approached me. "That went well I thought." She said with a smile.

"Celebi warned me about him. Didn't know who she was referring to, but he was almost definitely one of them."

Taylor rested a hand on my shoulder. "You'll be fine. You always are."

I only nodded returned to the front of the room where I had planned to speak. In order to still my nerves, I quickly started with, "Alright. Barring any further interruptions, I think we should get this started."

-Meanwhile-

Adrian awoke to the sound of himself coughing. Hazy from his unconsciousness, it took him a while to noticed his coughing was spilling blood on the ground, and on a pair of pretty nice pants.

He felt cold. There was very little light, save for a single hanging fixture. It dimly illuminated the area around him, leaving everything else in the dark. He tried to get to his feet, but encountered his first problem. His hands were tied very tightly to a metal beam behind him. It was clear any effort to break free would only be pointless.

As he began to slowly think through his options, carefully considering the advantages and problems with each, he was approached by someone who he had very expected to see.

Dark chuckled watching him. "Comfy?"

"What do you want me for?" Adrian asked him directly. He wasn't going to play games in a situation like this.

Dark slowed down a little. He looked over Adrian again curiously. "You are very different from him. You've been through a lot. It's affected you on a deeper level, hasn't it?"

Adrian coughed again before he could respond, tossing a few drops of blood in Dark's direction. "You...don't know anything about who I am. Or what I will do to you."

"Sure." Dark replied. "In the meantime, I think we need to make a deal."

Adrian had no response.

Straightening up and beginning to pace slowly, the clone continued. "I need to ask you a favor. I've known some things about you. Things you proved to be true during our last interaction. You can shadow travel. I need that."

"You're crazy if you think you'll get it."

Dark seemed to ignore him. "I've got an army that needs to go somewhere fast, and a whole bunch of mutated kids getting on a plane wouldn't exactly be under the radar."

Adrian shook his head. "You're joking. My body wouldn't be able to handle transporting an entire army."

Dark sighed. He turned around, knelt down face to face with him, and growled softly, "Then you'll take them as many as you can at a time. And you'll do it until every single one has been moved."

"They're people."

Dark frowned. "What?"

Adrian opened one eye to look at him. "Those kids you're talking about. They're normal people like you and me."

Dark rolled his eyes. "I think we both know you and I are anything but normal."

"Doesn't have to be that way." Adrian replied. "I got here because every problem I have, I have friends to turn to along the way. Even if I'm not always willing to accept that, I'd be a lot worse off without them. As for you, I don't care if you're a clone. I don't care who you resemble, I know for a fact you're not like him. You may seem like a cheap copy of someone else, but you live. You breathe, and you can fight your own destiny. You're a person like anyone else."

Dark slammed a fist into the pole Adrian had been attached to. "Shut up. You're going to do exactly what I say, and you know why?" Dark grabbed his head and threw it back into the pole, where it smacked hard, leaving a ring echoing through the space. "Because if you don't, I will change my strategy. My army is ready to go at any time. Ignore me, and I will attack your friends with full force, and I will kill every last one of them except Todd, and I will bring him here to watch me kill you, before I end him too. I have a very short time frame. So help me, if I am prevented from getting the power I want, I will destroy everything that any of you have ever known or loved. Are we clear?"

Adrian coughed lightly, making sure to look towards his captor so that his blood might fall on him. "Crystal."

Dark grumbled under his breath as he stood. "Someone'll cut you loose in a minute. You better get to work. And remember what I said about escaping."

Adrian watched him walk away. As soon as he felt he was away from his eyes, he set his head back gingerly against the pole, and began breathing heavily, his thoughts racing.

I can't do this. Not anymore.

---

I thought I had done a pretty good job explaining it all. It wasn't the worst I had ever done, that was for sure.

After I finished however, I was met with a number of looks of confusion. Those unfamiliar with us were definitely not sure what to think. I wasn't comfortable up in the spotlight, trapped under the number of stares.

Thankfully, someone showed up late and created a distraction, which I gladly took advantage of. One more portal showed up, after being long delayed compared to the others, and Celebi must have been getting careless at this point, because he came down right onto a small stack of cardboard boxes.

I made my way over to the wreckage, kind of hoping that whoever this last person was, they might be of significant use to us. I was a little disappointed at first glance, however. They appeared much like a normal teenager, dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a math joke printed on it. As if his apparel wasn't off putting enough, he was surprisingly skinny, and it gave me the feeling he didn't do any sort of school sports. Of course, I didn't exactly know his universe, so who knows? Maybe there weren't any sports there.

I reached forward and extended an arm. He lifted his head slightly, and noticed my invitation, lifting an arm to grab mine. I gently tugged him to his feet, where he rested an arm on my shoulder while he panted heavily. "Thanks."

"No problem." I replied. "Welcome to the nonsense."

He looked around the room briefly before looking down. I felt something in the back of my head. I didn't like when my telepathy activated without my intent, but I seemed to have limited it to detecting significant distress. That was what I sensed in that moment. It hadn't come from the guy, but rather someone else in the room. I wasn't sure who or why, but somebody here knew this kid, and was very conflicted about seeing him.

Unfortunately, I had been distracted for an awkward amount of time, and I was only brought back to reality when someone bumped my shoulder while passing. I blinked a few times, and looked at our new arrival once again. He gave me a look. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Just...thinking. Sorry. Uh, do you have a name?"

"Casey." He replied, looking around, still apparently overwhelmed.

I was hit with another feeling of distress, this one even more violent. I held a hand to my head. "Hey, listen, do you mind if someone else talk to you about this? I gotta...go..."

I turned around and tried to focus my powers to figure out whose feelings I was picking up on. I didn't want to invade anyone's privacy, but these feelings were really intense. It made me worried. With what we were going into, having someone out of focus could get them killed.

I became more worried when my wandering led me to someone who already all but threatened to kill me. Our new fur-covered buddy, Carter. I approached him slowly. He was separate from everyone else, standing quietly by himself. His hood was up, indicating he wasn't too inclined to be social right now.

I walked up to his side slowly, not wanting to seem intrusive, despite the fact that I was going to be exactly that. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

I could see and sense his hesitation. He initially tensed up, but seemed to relax a little as he turned to face me. "What's up? He asked, sounding a little annoyed, but not in a "I-want-to-kill-you" kind of way.

I swallowed my stress. "I know there's been a lot going on, and I'm sure you're confused about...stuff...so I don't want to be a nuisance. Is something...bothering you?"

I wanted to slap myself. 

He looked at me with an unreadable look in his eyes. He was surprisingly good at not conveying emotions other than anger. For a moment, I wondered why I was doing this. It certainly wasn't my place, being a complete stranger from an alternate dimension, to question his emotional well-being.

After what seemed like ages, he finally asked a simple question. "Why?"

Simply grateful to have a response, I answered, "Well, you see, I can kind of...read minds...and I don't do it a lot, I know it's an invasion of privacy and all that, but...I've always been on alert for someone under significant emotional distress. Just a moment ago, you had a spike of that. I'd just like to say that I'm...concerned."

He looked at me for a second, and let out a sigh. "I'm sorry if I seem a little resistant. I've spent a while on my own, and I kinda have issues with trust, and, as you've already seen, anger." He glanced up at the ceiling, "I guess if I had to say anything it'd be that I'm having a little bit of a family reunion."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a twin. Grew up with my brother as one of my best friends. Then...something happened, and we were taken away from each other. I thought he was dead, and I assume he thought the same. I was lied to. And now, after wondering for what felt like ages how I could get with my family again, it happens here. In a weird warehouse in an alternate dimension."

I pointed toward our new kid subtly. "That's your brother?"

He nodded. "I know we look pretty different. I was part of an experiment, it's a long story. But now I'm finally here, and...I can't." He turned his head a little, keeping his face away from my sight. "I can't do this after what I've become. I'm not the brother either of us knew. And Casey..." He lifted his head to look at his sibling. "He needs his brother. I don't want to give him anything less."

I nodded. "You shouldn't be...ashamed of yourself. You're learning, growing up, just like all of us. You went through a lot, but what matters is how that changed you as a person. There's still some of your old self in there, and even if it doesn't show itself much, I doubt anyone would be able to recognize it better than a twin."

He glanced over at me. A small tear dripped from one eye, which he quickly wiped away. "...Thanks, I guess."

I felt a tapping on my shoulder. I turned around and found Celebi floating there impatiently. "If you guys are done with your bro-mance fest, we need to move."

"Is something happening?" I asked, stupidly.

Celebi looked me dead in the eyes. "It's happening now."

---

A little shorter than I wanted again. However, I just got a comment that reminded me of my desire to complete this chapter.

(thanks )

See you guys next time.

Also, totally not sponsored, but the band Shinedown dropped their newest album last Friday, and HOLY FRIG I am loving it. It's fantastically made by a fantastic group, and I think some of you would like it. You can find it on Youtube (new album is called Attention Attention). 

Oh yeah. I suppose I'd have to give you a content warning. They do curse once or twice. Anyway, just a recommendation.