1/2/20

10:40 pm

Library of Research

Harmony decided to do a little showboating, as she made some weird trumpet noises while opening another giant door in the same hallway. Inside the room, a collection of books—around twenty-five hundred of them—were all placed neatly in shelves that surrounded the entire room. 'It had to be a library, didn't it...?'

Harmony floated towards the center of the rectangular room and turned around towards us. "Welcome to our library," She said whispering. "This room is for all the research we use for decisions on the Council."

Me, Abby, and Chris could barely make out what she said to us. "Harmony," I said in my normal, loud voice. "why are you whisper—."

Harmony immediately interrupted me by floating over towards me and placing one of her fingers on my mouth. "Shh... I don't want to wake up the librarian right now."

'There's a librarian here of all places?' I moved Harmony's finger out of my face to peek at who was on the right-side table. The creature—which was sleeping on top of the table—looked like a pale white baby with a half-star for a hat. I completely realized a few moments later that the "thing" had two yellow streamers attached to the back, and a familiar curve was on the creature's belly. 'This has to be a Pokémon, but which one?'

Abby and Chris decided to follow what I was doing and immediately pulled me away from my hiding spot once they realized what I was looking at. The two Eevee turned towards Harmony. "Jirachi's the librarian?!" Abby yelled at all of us using his whispering voice.

Oh, that's what the Pokémon was! "Yes, it is him Abby." Harmony confirmed the statement. "Surprised to see him again, Chris?"

"Again?" I said confused. "Chris, you've seen Jirachi before?!"

"Well... It's a very long story to explain." Chris decided to peek again to where Jirachi was, but to his surprise Jirachi wasn't even on the table. "Uh, oh. We might have a prob—."

Chris was turning towards the three of us when Jirachi literally came from above us and dropped right next to Chris' face. "Hi there!"

"Ahh!" Chris jumped back being startled, almost hitting a large bookshelf. "You gave me a heart attack, J!"

'Who's J?'

Harmony leaned close towards me. J is Jirachi's nickname... Or at the very least what Chris calls him.

Chris slowly walked up Jirachi and gave a smile out of common courtesy. "Guys, this is J. I know him since... I saved his life a long time ago." Both me and Abby's eyes widened out of complete surprise and confusion.

"Yes, that's true," Jirachi said smiling. "It was actually Harmony's test for bring him here in the first place!" He started floating towards a blue book on the top shelf next to him to grab it. "We have a tradition for finding people like Chris." After flipping through some pages, Jirachi showed the three of us a picture of a shooting star crashing into a forest with a house nearby.

"Before that happens," Harmony said looking at the three of us, "we select a number of candidates before doing an 'emotional test' to each of them. To put it simply, a small Legendary or Mythical Pokémon—in Chris' case it was J here—would make it seem like they accidently crashed in the forest and got injured." Harmony paused herself to think about what she was going to say next. "Um... The situation that happened there was actually real."

Chris shuddered. "I somehow still remember that night... I was the only person to wake up in my house that night. Wearing my PJ's, I walked to the cold forest and saw J with a little Eevee trying to bite J here."

Harmony started smiling right at Abby for a few moments and started to focus on me. "J told me what happened that night, and Chris apparently had the heroics. He jumped right in front of the Eevee and took the bite that probably would hit J's foot." A wave of her tiny paw revealed underneath Chris' fur on his top left arm was a scar that was shaped like a crescent. I think Chris was as shocked as we were because his eyes widened the same time ours did.

"Anyway," Jirachi continued, "I helped get the Eevee off him and calm it down. Chris for some reason wanted to call me J because of the chance we might meet again... And he asked me a question."

Chris closed his eyes to try and remember what he said. "I said... 'Can you make this Eevee comfortable with me around her?'"

'It was a girl?' My face went into shock realizing something. 'Wait...'

"I decided to call that a wish and alter the memories of both Chris and the Eevee's memory to... know how to live with each other, basically. I went back towards Harmony and told her he's the one."

I finally decided now was the time to interrupt. "I don't mean to spoil anything, but if I had to take a guess, was the Eevee... Abby?"

Jirachi turned to me and gave a little smirk. "Ahh, the other human Harmony sent to this world, and somehow the only being that had the guts to testify against the Council... Words get by fast here." He floated up to place the book back where it was and looked back. "You would be one-hundred percent correct!"

"So J!" Harmony said clapping at the same time. "Now that the backstory is done, we need your help location a book from here. The serial number is 25631-97048."

Now it was Jirachi's turn to be surprised, as his eyes immediately went to Harmony. "That book?" he responded. Harmony nodded trying to give her best fake smile. "Well..." His head tried to wrap around the thought of looking at whatever the book was. "F-Fine."

Jirachi floated towards the backend of the library and started scrolling through the bookshelf there. Once he found the actual book, he pulled it and caused the self to sink inside the wall, revealing a secret hallway. The Pokémon started racing down the hallway, and Harmony—who was right beside us still—looked at me. "Hope you got your running shoes on."

"I'm barefoot, Harmony." I said in a serious tone. "What are you going to do, magically form shoes on my feet?" She waved again her same hand from last time, and a pair of Air Jordan XXXIII was slipped on my feet. "Why do I even ask?" I shook my head sighing and started running.

The hallway we all went through had blue tinted color lights provided by the view of the sun. I sure didn't take any mind of it until I was about three steps away from the room Jirachi was. Around that moment, Abby paused herself to look at one of the glass windows for some reason.

Meanwhile, me, Harmony, and Chris finally arrived at the room where Jirachi was just standing completely stunned. Three podiums were on the center of the room facing our direction. The left one had only dust collecting there, while the other two had books that made the room feel like a study room.

"No, no, no!" Jirachi yelled and started immediately floating toward the empty podium. "Someone stole the book you were looking for...!" He turned to realize that Harmony's face wasn't really being straight to him. "You know who did this then, Harmony?"

Harmony nodded. "It was Darkrai. I honestly didn't put it together when he ran into me while making his getaway. What I'm wondering is how did he get in there in the first place?"

"Hey guys!" Abby yelled to the four of us. "I think that's how Darkrai got in here." We found her looking at a broken window that had a large hole making a large gust moving toward's Abby direction. Even with the hole being far from us, I could feel the cold air chilling down my entire body.

"That would be why it's so cold here..." I mumbled.

"Come to think of it," Chris said looking at the podiums again, "these three books are separated from the library... What was these books about?"

A solemn face ran over Jirachi's face. "The books here are basically the encyclopedia of each universe, ranging from cities and culture to military strategies and weapons. The left book Darkrai stole..." Jirachi paused himself to sigh. "Was about Universe 1."

***

11:59 pm

Sky (En Route to New Location)

I know Cord using Psychic on me earlier felt weird, but Harmony using Psychic on my human form felt even weirder. In fact, I think it's the first time that Abby and Chris had someone use Psychic on them while not trying to slam them into a surface. "Lucas," Harmony reminded, "you know you can take off the bowtie since we're back to regular air."

"I know," I said. "But I'm wondering first about that time limit you agreed on..."

"Hmm..." Harmony was for some reason staring into nothing while moving along. "Oh sorry! I was lost in thought for some reason! Okay, I don't know why it took long to decide, but the time limit we all have is one hour and fifteen minutes from when we arrive at the place... With one condition, though."

The three of us looked at Harmony at the same time wondering what she was talking about. "You never said anything about a condition for the time limit."

"That is true, but this part has to do with me... When one-hour remaining hits, I have to separate from you three and get out of here as soon as I can." Harmony grinned as she just revealed this to us.

"What?!" All three of us yelled at her.

"Why would you say that now?" I asked her.

"I'm sorry guys! My mind completely forgot until Lucas just reminded me now... Anyway, I wanted to give you this." Harmony threw a stopwatch to me with the time already set on it. "That's what keep you guys in track of the time."

I sighed. "I... Let's do this." The bowtie on me was thrown away from my hand to who knows where.

"Lucas!" Harmony yelled at me. "That bowtie was 30 Poké on the—!"

I couldn't hear anything Harmony was saying, probably because my ears were being pulled. "I can't hear you," I mouthed while pointing at my head. The new ears finally popped out of the top of my head, having yellow and black fur on it. "That's better." Harmony was going to repeat what she was saying but gave up because the moment passed.

A lighting-shaped tail sprouted out my rear proportionate to my body now, which finally gave my chance to wag my tail again. "Wait, how exactly are we going to find Cord when we get in here?" Chris said while yellow fur started sprouting around my arms and legs. The shoes I was wearing evaporated beneath my skin as three-toed, yellow furry feet was finally revealed to the other three Pokémon.

Harmony stopped moving to turn at Chris' direction. "It's kind of a coincidence, but when I was captured for trespassing, the group taking me to the detention center passed a room full of Pokémon that what I could make out was talking about Dark Pinging. And since they left the door open, I was able to see a vent that's big enough for small Pokémon to fit in." My hands started getting smaller, becoming paws with yellow fur. "So if we can get to the vent that leads to that room..."

"A surprise attack or distraction can be used so we can Dark Ping Cord?" I responded. At this point, all yellow fur finally reached everywhere except my head.

"That's what I'm thinking of doing right now..." Harmony said looking at me. "I think I should help you with that." Harmony stopped all of us to start push my head down. Everything in my surrounding started getting bigger... Wait, why am I saying that? I was shrinking!

My entire body for some reason was getting back into its comfortable state—probably because of me being a Pikachu for about a week—which kinda weird me out. But I ignored that feeling when Harmony stopped shrinking me and tapped my cheek.

Once we got moving again, the fur finally went past my head, causing my face to change. For starters, the hair on my head started sinking in, leaving only the tips of my head sticking out—creating what I assumed looked like a cowlick. My eyes widened, keeping the same eye color, and nose shrank to make a black dot. I was a Pikachu again.

"It's good to be like this again!" I yelled, creating an echo.

"Pardon the interruption Lucas," Abby said moving slightly ahead of me, "But I think we're here..."

In the distance, a floating landscape was seen on top of a large body of water—probably a sea or ocean. When we moved slightly closer, a building that had sixteen floors came into view right on top of the weird enough landscape. Coincidentally, some guard Pokémon were laying around the outside waiting for someone here to break the trespassing limits.

Their eyes, of course, looked like it was on fire.

"This is definitely the place," Chris confirmed by nodding after. "Kinda obvious we can't just walk in the front door, so how are we going to sneak in?"

Harmony grabbed all of us at the same time to turn invisible and dove towards the bottom of the floating landscape. Excess dust and dirt were falling off to the ocean, which partially revealed a large metal tube sticking out.

"The old garbage chute." Harmony revealed. "Cord told me about this being discontinued because of 'pollution reasons.'" she giggled. "Like if that hasn't stopped anyone... Anyway, I think this leads to an air vent."

"You think?" I repeated. "It sounds like you're making this plan all based on luck."

Harmony smiled. "Of course I'm making this based on luck. Everything we do in our lives has luck with it. Now just for saying that..." Harmony made me visible again and got rid of her Psychic effect on me. "You're first!"

She tossed me up in the air, breaking through the dirt and dust, and forced me to use my paws and feet to brace myself on the tube. "Harmony!" I yelled. "What was that for?!"

Harmony started laughing out of my yelling. "I did get you up there, so you're welcome! And I think you should start the clock now..."

I realized that the stopwatch was dangling off my small neck, causing me to shake my head and sigh. "Fine." I used one hand to hit the start button.

*Time Started*

Objectives:

Find the Book About Universe 1!

Save Cord from Peril!

Capture Darkrai!

***

1/3/20

12:12 am

Darkness Headquarters (Air Vents; 1F)

*1 Hour, 8 Minutes Remaining; 8 Minutes Before Harmony Separates*

'How... Is Harmony so lucky!?'

Turns out she hit the air vent idea right on the money, making her, me, Abby, and Chris go through the weird maze of the air vents. I had to lead the way since Harmony threw me first, causing me to have little to no clue to where we're going. Fortunately, Harmony has been talking to me telepathically where the room could be... Emphasis on the "could."

I honestly believe this mission is really going to be based on luck.

"I'm getting impatient right now," I mumbled to myself.

"What do you mean by that?" Abby asked me. "I know it's uncomfortable for you and Harmony to walk here." She was saying that because both our bodies were close to hitting the top of the vent—and creating that noise might ruin the element of surprise.

We had to keep our heads low, even though my ears were already scraping the metal. "You say that like you and Chris are uncomfortable as well..." I said in a sarcastic tone but stopped because of what was ahead of us. Four lasers were moving down blocking our path. "Are you kidding me?" I whispered. "This is the fourth laser wall! Harmony."

"I got it." Everyone ducked so Harmony to pass through, and she did—while also trying to not bump into us nor the vent. With both paws, Harmony formed a pink, rectangular Light Screen and placed it in the direction the lasers came from. Basically, Harmony's Light Screen acted like a "blocker" which allowed us to pass through the wall without triggering the alarm. Once we all got out, Harmony removed the Light Screen without a problem for us. "How many more times left I'm going to use Light Screen? I'm almost out."

"It depends on how many times the writer needs to keep this chapter long enough..." Chris reminded us.

Hey! I-I... Oh, screw it.

Like if it was a coincidence, a bright light shined in front of all our faces, revealing the end of the air vent. What came into view was an entire room full of computers surrounding a podium, a camera, and what looked like a page flipper.

In case you were wondering, the book was right on top of the podium.

"At least we found the book room," I said to the others. "Which one would you think is the main computer?"

"What's a computer?" Abby whispered to me.

I ignored the question when Harmony barged in. "Everyone is going through that computer in the middle." She pointed at where an Emolga was sitting in. "That's probably it... I'd step back if I were you."

When me and Abby followed Harmony's instruction, she immediately formed a blue fireball from her left paw. 'That's Will-O-Wisp!' She opened a flap in the vent and threw the fireball toward a mounted camera, causing the item to go on fire. A fire alarm momentarily went off, causing chaos and panic.

I could even hear someone say, "This is what we get for making a fire hazard today!"

Everyone in the room evacuated leaving the door empty. "Let's do this." I used Iron Tail to chop off the metal end of the vent so we can finally access the room. Harmony floated to remove the book from the podium and destroyed the camera and page flipper.

"How are we going to Dark Ping Cord here?" Abby said looking at me. Judging from the main computer there must be a main program to use Dark Pinging.

"I have an idea." I jumped out the vent to the main computer chair and started scrolling the files.

Abby and Chris closed the door once we got out of the vent and went to me. "I hope you know what you're doing, Lucas."

'I know, I know, I know—.'

"Gotcha." I reached a computer file called dark_ping.cpp. "What do you know, these Pokémon use coding here..." I activated the program and started typing on the keyboard:

g++ dark_ping.cpp -o dark_ping

.a/dark_ping

A bunch of characters started scrolling down the page, causing Abby and Chris to be extremely confused. "Um," Chris said, "did it work or not?"

Harmony meanwhile teleported the book back to the Council room and joined the three of us. "Oh, it worked alright."

Another text popped up.

Whom you would you like to Dark Ping?

After what Cord said to all of us a few days I decided to input the only option:

Darkness Special Agent Division Graduate #23

A map popped up soon after showing only a blue dot. "But on the legend, there should be a red and blue dot." I mumbled. "So that means..."

"Cord's right on top of us."

***

Meanwhile:

12:16 pm

Darkness Headquarters 13F

Bisharp woke up with a start. It knew something was wrong, although it couldn't put to why.

It perhaps was only just a feeling, he thought. He got out of bed to open a closet nearby. Now why would a Pokémon have a closet? After all, every Pokémon don't feel ashamed by not wearing clothes. That's because Bisharp didn't use the closet for that purpose.

Inside the closet was Cord—who was restrained for moving anywhere.

"You know..." he said grunting after. "Would it really kill you to loosen these things sooner or later?"

Bisharp ignored his question and sat down on a chair. "...You feel it, don't you?"

Cord tilted his head. "What?"

"Someone in this building activated your Dark Ping without my permission. Let me ask again, do you feel it too?!" Cord kept silent about it, trying his best to not reveal anything. "Damn it." He charged at Cord and started to choke him. "Answer!"

"Y-Yes..." Cord managed to squeak out. After a few moments, Bisharp let go of Cord, causing him to gasp of air and cough.

Bisharp meanwhile decided to call mission control. "Sound the alarm." It then proceeded to Cord. "It's time to take your medicine..."

Cord gulped, knowing what's next. If anyone from his group came to rescue him...

He or she will be in for a big surprise.

***

12:18 am

Darkness Headquarters (Detention Center; 1F)

*1 Hour, 2 Minutes Remaining*

Harmony already separated from the group since her time limit was almost up but decided to do one more thing. Right now, she was moving around the empty Detention Center trying to find the room which had a certain Pokémon.

"Ugh..." A groan came out from somewhere. Harmony turned to her side and found the Pokémon she was looking for.

It was a Houndour, who was asleep somehow. Harmony opened the cell door and shook the Houndor's shoulder. "Hey... Wake up, Phoenix."

The Houndour—which Harmony named Phoenix—groggily opened her eyes. "Hello?" she responded. "W-Where am I?" Her vision was still impaired, so she couldn't realize the Pokémon right in front of her was a Mew.

"Nice to see you awake Phoenix. As for where you are... I don't think you would want to know right now."

Phoenix was completely confused with how Harmony knew her name. She decided to rub her eyes, before realizing what was her paws. "How do I have—?!"

Harmony shushed her. "I can't let anyone know I'm here... Let's get out of here, shall we?"

She touched Phoenix's head and used Teleport.

*Game File Saved*

A/N: Fun Fact: Air Jordan's main line hasn't been updated since 2018.