The Vermillion police station was unexpectedly quiet, considering the situation. Probably due to all the on-duty officers being on the alert for the shadow that presumably was still in the city. The only personnel on hand were a communications officer, a secretary at the front desk, and the police chief. Currently, the secretary was dealing with recording a new entry into the day's files, regarding the green-haired Pokémon trainer in front of the desk.

         "Tom Anchors. Pokémon trainer. Seventeen badges- the main eight from Johto and Kanto, plus Dark City's Gemini Badge. No criminal record. Works as a Pokémon Chaser..."

         "Is all that really necessary?" Tom asked, with an eyebrow raised. "I'm just here to let Koga look at my 'dex and hand over a Pokéball someone lost."

         The secretary nodded. "It is necessary, at least right now. We're in a state of emergency at the moment, and really have no idea what the threat is.  So we run a full check on everyone." She stopped typing on her computer and looked up. "I know it probably seems paranoid, but you know the old saying- better safe than sorry. Besides, it doesn't just let us sort out potential suspects- it can help us find out who could help us solve a problem, who can take care of themselves if something happens, and who we need to tell to stay home for their own safety." 

         "Ahhhh." Tom nodded.

         "And it seems that would include you as well," a voice behind the secretary stated, startling both her and the trainer she was talking to.

         The secretary whirled around and Tom looked up. Koga had returned from the back computer room, and held the wristband PokéGear/Pokédex in his right hand. In his left, he held what appeared to be some sort of computer printout.

        "A Chaser's specialty is battling dozens of opponents at once using no more than six Pokémon. The fact that this young man can do the job with just three says a lot. But to a more immediate way he could help, his Pokédex has provided a lot of information. Lorelei would probably understand more than I do, but what I do get is that whatever else that shadow is now, it at least used to be a human being." He laid out the printout in front of the trainer. "I can't pinpoint who just yet, but this person somehow looks familiar." 

         Tom looked down at the printout. It appeared to be a 3D model of a human male, but standing in the same threatening pose that the shadow had been standing in when it sent the police officer's Roubou flying. He had spiky hair, jeans, and a jacket, but it was impossible to tell the color of anything- everything, had all been colored grey, giving only a representation of shape and not color. And yet, something did seem very vaguely familiar about the guy... .. .

        Since childhood, Lorelei had embraced logic with all her mind. With it she had managed to see the good side of things, see how to make things turn out for the better. And in that way, she had managed to remain calm through even the worst of times. Even the painful times, she had been able to get through with relative ease...

        But for once in her life, logic failed her. A creature powerful enough to defeat Burai, powerful enough that only the surprise of what seemed like a deus ex machina had managed to let them all survive its onslaught. Logic said that such a deus ex machina wouldn't happen again. For once, the very logic that had kept Lorelei calm, cool, and collected, now had her scared out of her wits. 

        ... .. . but wait a minute? Was that deus ex machina really a deus ex machina after all? The Pokéball Lance somehow fired that blast out of was Burai's... and it happened right when Burai was under attack. Lorelei had ever heard of a Pokéball doing anything like that before, and likewise there was no known instance of a monster feeding off its victims the way that creature had attempted to, but if both previously unheard-of events happened at the same time, there was a chance they were related somehow.

        Lorelei snapped up to attention as if suddenly awakening from a dream that had told her the solution to the problem. A bond between a Pokémon and its Pokéball... beyond the known details about modern Pokéballs implanting trainer ID tags within the Pokémon caught, Lorelei wasn't aware of there being much thought put into the possibility. But if there was one, maybe the Pokémon League archives had something, or the Pokémon Guardsmen...

        Lorelei stood up and walked over to Armstrong. She spoke in a whisper, so as not to disturb the doctors. "I'm going to go look up some information, I should be back soon. If something comes up, come alert me. I'll be on the roof."

        The Machamp nodded, and smiled faintly. He was clueless as to what had gone on in Lorelei's head just now, but was glad it had helped, whatever it was. And with the teams data gatherer back on the ball, surely it wouldn't be long before things started going for the better...

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

 

         Meanwhile, in another emergency room in the northwest part of town, things were surprisingly looking a bit more hopeful for the other injury in the team.

         "Well, how's he look, Nurse?" Bruno asked as Vermillion City's Nurse Joy came out of the Pokémon Center's emergency room. He knew Burai didn't look badly injured, but still, it took a lot to knock out a Dragonite.

        Nurse Joy smiled. "He'll be fine. It'll take a bit of time for him to recover, but tell Lance his Dragonite should be better in just a couple of days. However..." she frowned, "I am curious. Just what sort of attack was it that hit him?"

        Bruno smiled in relief, and shook his head. "Heck if I know. I'm not even sure what it did, much less how!"

        "Well, what it did I managed to figure out. How is the part that's got me confused." Joy stated, putting her hands on her hips and wearing a worried expression. "When I ran a check on him, it seemed like his body passed out from nutrient deficiency. But he looked like he'd been eating healthy. Then I did the blood test, and saw something weird... it seemed as if the nutrients, all of them, just disappeared from his blood!"

        Bruno winced. He didn't know much about biology, but from what little he knew, that didn't sound good. "Like starving to death on a full stomach?"

        Joy nodded. "Exactly that. And speaking of full stomachs, his is in no shape to start digesting again, not yet. He'll be on an IV tube for now, but he should be okay in a few days."

         "Good, Lance will be glad to hear that." Bruno smiled sadly. "Can you take care of Burai until Lance can come by to pick him up?"

        "Of course!" Joy nodded. "That's my job! Just be careful in the meantime, though... I don't have enough equipment to give all your Pokémon IVs for that long."

         Bruno chuckled nervously. "Sure thing..." he said, uncertain what to make of the odds of this ever happening again.

        Still, only one way to find out, he thought. Now to see how old hooknose is doing...

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

        The night passed without any further incident in Vermillion. Naturally the shadow creature would not have been visible in the black of night, but as the sun rose and the darkness left, with no more incidents of the shadow appearing, it seemed as if the port town was once again safe.

         The overall mood of the people was calmer now in the day than it had been the previous night. The news media had not been allowed to report the shadow threat nationally yet, as a national panic would do more harm than good, but at Lorelei's e-mailed request the local media had warned people to stay in their houses at night and keep the lights on the whole time, so as to take away the creature's camouflage.

         It was almost 10 AM when Koga woke up, though he didn't see how. Koga was very used to the peace and quiet of his mansion in the Fuschia forest, and aside from Janine occasionally shouting gleefully about something or another, he wasn't used to loud sounds waking him up in the morning. Unfortunately, the muscleheaded snore-o-matic on the hotel room's other bed was nowhere near as pleasant a noise.

        Pulling himself out of bed, Koga muttered about all the reasons he hated leaving home. Sebille not being there to welcome him warmly back from dreamsville. Having to eat something called an "intercontinental breakfast", which consisted of a day old donut and a cup of coffee that had obviously been left in the pot far too long. Having the stale, filtered air of a hotel room instead of the scents wafting in from the forest. And so many more things that the ninja master just could not describe in decent words. Sure, these might not seem like the biggest of the sacrifices that went with the Elite Four job, but at least the charging into danger part wasn't half as annoying.

        Koga shook his head a bit. That's right, the creature they'd been chasing... now that the morning had come it was time to get back on the trail. Unfortunately, that also meant waking up the incredible bulk, a task not to be taken lightly.

        Frowning, Koga got up, and reached over for his belt, lifting it, the Pokéballs on it...  and his sword scabbard. He then unsheathed the sword and set the belt down on his bed, and focused for a moment with both hands on the hilt of his sword. As a ninja, he had learned through the art of Kakureiro to focus the same kind of telekinetic energies tapped by the likes of Sabrina, but where his were not as strong as most psychic humans, he could focus what little power he had better than they could.

        In this case, he amplified the electrical impulses that naturally pass through the body's nervous system, generating an electrical charge in his hands akin to that found in a Thunder Punch, though milder. He then brought his right hand over his left, touching the thumb to the side of his sword's blade, and the bottom of his left hand to the metallic cover on the end of the hilt, electrifying the weapon. Then, pulling back, he swung the weapon, not like he normally would but like it were a baseball bat, whacking Bruno's rear end with the flat side of the electrified sword.

        "YEAAUUGH!!!" came the resulting surprised yell, as Bruno jumped up and clumsily tumbled out of bed, pulling all his covers off with him.

        "Heh! More effective than a bucket of ice." Koga smirked, retrieving his scabbard and placing the sword back in it. "You should wait until winter to go into hibernation."

        "Very funny..." Bruno mumbled as he got up and pulled the covers off. "Did you really have to hit me with a cattle prod?"

        Koga raised an eyebrow. "Worked better than leaving an alarm clock ringing for half an hour like last time. Anyone would think you used heavy metal for lullabies as a kid..."

 

 

        Lorelei groggily awoke to a slight wet sensation on her face. "Huh... wha?"

         "Ah, that worked. Good thing you're easier to wake up than Bruno."

         Lorelei bolted upright and looked at the source of the voice. "Wha... Koga? What happened?"

        "You dozed off at your computer, apparently," the ninja stated simply, and placed the cup of water in his hand onto the desk. The laptop had been moved to the side from where it was when Lorelei had worked on it, apparently to keep it from getting wet. "We found you in here asleep, with the monitor still connected to a search engine. You were up all night trying to figure out how Lance shot an energy beam out of Burai's Pokéball, weren't you?"

        Lorelei nodded. "Yes... but I didn't find anything that wasn't classified. And even Elite Four access wasn't good enough for most of it."

        Koga smiled faintly. "Somehow I didn't think you'd be up to that..."

        "Huh?" Lorelei gave a slight look of annoyance.

        "Putting your concern for the situation before logic and reasoning. You should have gone to sleep when the rest of us did so you could be fresh and ready when we were all able to work together." He sat down in a chair at the hotel room's coffee table. "Not that I can fault you for it, but it's just not like you."

        Lorelei's face calmed down some. "True... but it's also not like Lance to be left unconscious with one of his Pokémon in critical condition. We're talking about the man who stopped a dozen of Team Rocket's worst plots and prevented Groudon and Kyogre from annihilating the world. For him to be knocked out by that kind of impact..."

        "Hold on!" Koga raised a hand. "One thing you have to remember, no matter what Lance has done, he's still a human, and has the limitations that go with that. Even a ninja grandmaster has his limits." And Koga knew that fact all too well- recognition of those limits was a core issue in learning how and when to use any given jutsu. Overdoing it in any way could cause exhaustion, or even serious injury. "Besides, you know too that Pokéballs aren't meant to do that. The energy from that ball is probably what knocked him out, but it didn't kill him, and the only physical wounds are his burned hand and a small lump on the head. He'll probably be fine."

        Lorelei didn't reply right away, but simply nodded, then looked at her computer screen. Koga frowned. He knew that she was right, of course- as far as Pokémon training was concerned, Lance was indeed the strongest amongst them. Bruno had the raw muscle, Lorelei the brains, and Koga the stealth, but Lance was by far the most well-rounded in all these areas. Still... he couldn't help but wonder if there was another reason Lance's condition was bugging her so...

        "Perhaps it would be best to go check on him again today, though." Koga said. "When Bruno gets back from getting breakfast, you and he should go there."

        Lorelei looked up. "Oh? And what will you be doing?"

        "I'm going to give my sister a phone call and then head to the Pokémon Center. She's got something that just might help us out a little... .. ."